Vehicle speed estimation based on Kalman filtering of accelerometer and wheel speed measurements

This paper deals with the algorithm of estimating the longitudinal speed of a braking vehicle using measurements from an accelerometer and a standard wheel speed sensor. We evolve speed estimation algorithms of increasing complexity and accuracy on the basis of experimental tests. A final speed estimation algorithm based on a Kalman filtering is developed to reduce measurement noise of the wheel speed sensor, error of the tire radius, and accelerometer bias. This developed algorithm can give peak errors of less than 3 percent even when the accelerometer signal is significantly biased.