BMS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, BENGALURU 1

(Autonomous Institution under VTU)

PID CONTROLLER FOR CRUISE CONTROL SYSTEM

SOUMYA PALAYAM, RAHUL SELVAKUMAR, RODNEY CRAIG CUTINO

1BM16CH038, 1BM16CH040, 1BM16CH041

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of the road, where gravitational pull effect comes to the front
Abstract— In this paper, the design of a Proportional and, second is the wind resistance against the velocity. A
Integral-Derivative (PID) controller for the cruise control schematic diagram of a car in the slope of a road is given in
system has been proposed. The cruise control system, which is a the Fig.1.
highly nonlinear, has been linearized around the equilibrium
point. the basic control principles behind cruise control systems
is given, starting with an open loop system, moving on to a
closed loop system, and then analyzing how a PID controller can

help fine‐tune the system to make the cruise control operate

smoothly and quickly. A complex real‐world system is then

Fig. 1.Schematic diagram of automobile on a slope.

looked at and compared to the simple PID control system. The cruise control system calculates the difference in speed
owing to these disturbances and delivers a control signal to
the actuators governing the throttle valve of the automobile to
I. INTRODUCTION maintain the fuel injection to the engine, thus providing an
Automobile cruise control system [1] has become a optimum speed.
common feature of the modern vehicles for driver comfort in
long-distance travels. It reduces the physical as well as the
mental stress of drivers in highway drives by providing them III. PID CONTROLLED CRUISE CONTROL
relief from regularly stepping on the pedal for adjusting gas
and looking at the speedometer for avoiding speeding tickets. PID stands for Proportional Integral Derivative. It uses 3
It also adds to the safety [2] of the passengers by reducing the types of controls that can each be fine tuned to get the perfect
risks of high-speed accidents. It is primarily velocity or speed response. Adding a PID makes the system look like this
control, which works on the principle of throttle position (Figure 6):
controlling according to speed requirements. Cruise control
also improves the dynamic performance of the automobile,
reduces pollution due to exhaust and heightens the comfort
level of riders. A basic model of cruise control provides the
driver a push button for setting a speed reference. The actual
speed will be compared with the reference set-point, resulting
into optimal speed control. The Proportional-Integral-
Derivative (PID) controller represents a traditional controller
which is employed in a lot of industrial applications.
Figure 6: Simple PID controlled closed loop cruise control
block diagram

II.CRUISE CONTROL SYSTEM
The basic problem of cruise control system is to maintain
the speed set by the driver or in other words, the speed of the
automobile should match a preset value. The main
disturbances to this constant speed drive come from the slopes
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If a PID controller simply has the Proportional component
set at 1, it does nothing, and the output of the system is
identical to that of the previously looked at feedback loop
with the steady state error of 1 m/s. Adding an integral
component set at 1 introduces some undesirable overshoot to
the system and also increases the response time, but does
solve the steady state error problem.
 2

Adding the derivative component set at 1 makes the changes the way we drive our cars.
oscillations ever wilder at the beginning, both increasing the
overshoot and increasing the response time. However, what it
does do is get rid of and of the long term oscillations seen in REFERENCES
the previous response [1] M. Bellis, "Ralph Teetor Invented Cruise Control,"
[2] K. Naughton, E. Thornton, K. Kerwin, H. Dawley. (1997,
It should be mentioned that it is not necessary to utilize all Sept).
three components of a PID in all cases. In situations where a [3] M. H. Lee, H. G. Park, S. H. Lee, K. S. Yoon, and K. S.
very fast rise time is needed, all three components can be very Lee, “An adaptive cruise control system for autonomous
important, in order to control the settling time and overshoot. vehicles,” International Journal of Precision Engineering
However, in a slow rise time situation such as this one, it is and Manufacturing, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 373-380, March
possible to control the overshoot, steady state error, and 2013.
response time with just two of the components. This is [4] H. Suzuki and T. Nakatsuji, “Effect of adaptive cruise control
because of the general effects each of the components has on on traffic throughput: Numerical example on actual freeway
the response. The proportional controller has a huge effect on corridor,” JSAE Review, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 403-410, Oct. 2003.
rise time—the higher it is set, the quicker the response.
However, increasing the proportional component also
introduces some steady state error and often a fair degree of
overshoot too. The integral controller also speeds of response
time, and has potential to increase the overshoot too;
however, its most useful attribute is that it helps to eliminate
steady state error. The purpose of the derivative controller
then becomes cutting down on the overshoot caused by the
proportional and integral.

IV. DISTURBANCE

In real world driving conditions, a cruise control system

generally has to work at maintaining a constant speed as well
as accelerating to the correct speed. In fact, the ability to
maintain the proper speed is probably more important to the
customer’s satisfaction with the cruise control system than the
ability to accelerate well. Factors like wind, hills, varying
road friction, drafts from other vehicles, or steering forces all
work against the speed of the vehicle—some work to speed it
up, and some work to slow it down. This sort of idea could
probably be modeled with some sort of random signal
generator disturbance input in the system, but a more
complicated would need to be created to actually show how
the system would operate.

V. CONCLUSIONS

Cruise control technology has come a long way since the

first systems invented by Teetor or installed on the late 50’s
Chryslers. With the glimpse into the real world Dodge Stealth
system from 1991, it is easy to see just how much
computerized control play a role in controlling the speed of
vehicles today. As computerized control technology continues
to expand, it is expected that adaptive cruise control will
begin to become more widespread. The possibilities of what
such a system can do seem nearly limitless. If every car on the
road could one day be equipped with adaptive cruise control,
we could live in a world with drastically fewer traffic
accidents than we ever have thought possible. While cruise
control was invented as a comfort or convenience item, it
could eventually begin to double as a safety feature that