Load fluidity oriented automatic emergency braking control method for tank trucks

The liquid sloshing in partially-filled tank trucks significantly degrades the performance of the automatic emergency braking system (AEBS). However, existing research on AEBS for tank trucks has largely overlooked the influence of load fluidity. To address this issue, this paper proposes an automatic emergency braking method based on time to collision (TTC), which explicitly accounts for the dynamic influence of liquid sloshing on the actual braking deceleration. A lower-layer control strategy incorporating feedforward compensation and utilization of the vertical sloshing force is designed. Simulation results under different test scenarios and filling ratios demonstrate that the proposed strategy enhances the minimum relative distance by up to 68.0% and achieves successful collision avoidance in different scenarios and filling ratios where the conventional strategy fails. These results demonstrates that the proposed control method effectively mitigates the adverse effects of load fluidity on the performance of AEBS and significantly enhances the safety of tank trucks.