Idea: hypermiling cruise control

[rjacob]

How about a cruise control designed for hypermiling? Someone could probably modify a cheap after market cruise control to be more fuel efficient. Maybe have it recieving data that the scangauge gets. Then write a small computer program to read the data from the port, and control the throttle. It could use info like rpms, speed, throttle position. And do easy accelerations. It could tweaked to maximize the gas milage, but with the ease of a cruise control. It can maybe even learn. I have a programable thremostat at home that learns the heating characteristics of the room. It learns that if it sends x amount of power for y seconds, the room temperature will by z. That way it can keep the room temp pretty consistent. The cruise control could learn the characteristics of the car.

The electronics is beyond me, but I could probably do the programming stuff.

[Vince-HX]

I want a pulse and glide cruise control, that would be sweet

[trikkonceptz]

I may be a little off on the times as far as cruise control technology, but do any of the advanced cruise controls adjust for distance between cars yet? If so is the distance between cars programmable?

[atomicradish]

Originally Posted by trikkonceptz

I may be a little off on the times as far as cruise control technology, but do any of the advanced cruise controls adjust for distance between cars yet? If so is the distance between cars programmable?

Autonomous cruise control system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Several Japanese manufacturers first offered ACC systems in the Japanese market in the late 1990s. These early systems did not apply the brakes and only controlled speed through throttle control and downshifting. However, this was changed with the Acura RL. It features Collision Mitigation Braking System, which can alert drivers of objects up to 100 m ahead, if the distance is less, it brakes slightly and tugs at the seatbelts. In case of no driver reaction, the RL retracts, locks the seatbelts and brakes hard. A similar system is offered in the Lexus LS430/460.

I thought this was particularly neat. Leave it to Honda to come up with something this ingenious.

[steensn]

I work with ACC, I do system integration for the module that receives the decel commands from the ACC radar module. There are several manufacturers with these systems, not just Honda. Cadillac, VW, BMW all have an ACC option on most models that is 30 kph and higher with no collision mitigation. Most future car platforms that have ACC (which I can't tell you guys) does actually have collision mitigation. I know how the whole system works to a T.

The cruise control idea is interesting. It is cake if you can control the engine via a CAN message as in most newer cars. You would probably have to find a way to overide the cruise control module in the car and tap into the CAN bus with a new module. The problem will come in when you go to a cable puller type cruise control. That would have to either have a learning algorithm (which them makes the electronics more complicated possibly) or it must be programmed for that car. Each car is going to respond different to the cable pulling. In the end you'd never get your money back for the system in gas savings.

[jomelmaldonado]

Hi, I made a Cruise Control (with MPG sensitive logic) and posted all the making process at this thread:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ic-2031-3.html