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Vehicle System Dynamics:

International Journal of Vehicle
Mechanics and Mobility
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The Use of GPS Based Velocity

Measurements for Measurement of
Sideslip and Wheel Slip
David M. Bevly , J. Christian Gerdes & Christopher Wilson
Published online: 09 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: David M. Bevly , J. Christian Gerdes & Christopher Wilson (2002) The
Use of GPS Based Velocity Measurements for Measurement of Sideslip and Wheel Slip,
Vehicle System Dynamics: International Journal of Vehicle Mechanics and Mobility, 38:2,
127-147

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/vesd.38.2.127.5619

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 Vehicle System Dynamics 0042-3114/02/3802-127$16.00
2002, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 127±147 # Swets & Zeitlinger

The Use of GPS Based Velocity Measurements

for Measurement of Sideslip and Wheel Slip

DAVID M. BEVLY1, 2, J. CHRISTIAN GERDES2 AND CHRISTOPHER WILSON3

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SUMMARY

This paper details a novel method for measuring three key vehicle states ± wheel slip, body sideslip angle,
and tire sideslip angle ± using GPS velocity information in conjunction with other sensors. Based on initial
noise data obtained from the system components, a prediction of the accuracy of the angle measurements is
obtained. These results demonstrate that the errors due to stochastic noise in the GPS signal are below one
degree for meaningful vehicle speeds and approach a tenth of a degree at highway speeds. Hence the
limiting factor for measuring these states is not the GPS receiver, but the manner in which other
implementation issues ± such as bias elimination, off-axis dynamics and dead-reckoning during loss of
satellite visibility ± are handled. Subsequent experiments validate both the error analysis and the
methodology for obtaining the measurements. The experimental results for this preliminary implementation
of GPS-based state estimation compare favorably to theoretical predictions, suggesting that this technique
has potential for future implementation in vehicle diagnostic and, ultimately, safety systems.

NOMENCLATURE

r Vehicle yaw rate

gbias Yaw gyro bias
Orientation of the vehicle centerline (vehicle heading)
KF Kalman Filter estimate of the vehicle heading
GPS Two antenna GPS measurement of the vehicle heading
rgyro Yaw gyro sensor reading
Vel
GPS Horizontal GPS velocity vector heading
 Vehicle sideslip angle at the CG
A Sideslip angle at the GPS antenna
P Sideslip angle at point P on the vehicle
f ; r Sideslip angle at the front and rear axle

1
Corresponding author: David M. Bevly, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Auburn University,
Auburn, AL 36849-5341, USA. Tel.: ‡1-334-844-3446; Fax: ‡1-344-844-3307; E-mail: dmbevly@
eng.auburn.edu
2
Department of Mechanial Engineering, Stanford University, USA.
3
DaimlerChrysler Research & Technology, North America, Inc., USA.
 128 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.

VA Velocity vector at the GPS antenna

VP Velocity vector at point P on the vehicle
RA=P Position vector from the GPS antenna to point P on the vehicle
Vx Longitudinal velocity
f ; r Front and rear tire slip angles
Cf ; Cr Front and rear tire cornering stiffness
a Distance from the front axle to the vehicle CG
b Distance from the rear axle to the vehicle CG
Iz Vehicle yaw moment of inertia
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m Vehicle mass
 Front steer angle

1. INTRODUCTION

The Global Positioning System (GPS) has provided the ability to determine a body's
position anywhere on the surface of the globe. While atmospheric conditions and
other random noise corrupt the positioning accuracy, the main source of positioning
error ± injected noise known as Selective Availability (SA) ± was removed on May 2,
2000, making it possible to determine absolute position within about a 10 m radius
using a single receiver. If additional accuracy is desired, differential GPS (DGPS),
which incorporates differential corrections from a ®xed base station, can eliminate
most of the remaining errors and enable positioning with centimeter-level accuracy.
Additionally, a four antenna Carrier-Phase GPS unit can be used to provide 0.1 (zero
drift) attitude measurements in roll, pitch, and yaw [1] and accurate attitude rate
measurements [2] without a correction reference station. In automotive applications,
the positioning capability of GPS has proven effective when implemented on vehicles
for land navigation [3] and lanekeeping [4]. The ability of GPS to provide an accurate
measurement of absolute velocity without differential corrections or multiple
antennas, however, has not been given equivalent attention in the automotive ®eld.
In this paper, these GPS velocity measurements are used to calculate wheel slip and
vehicle sideslip angle for stability control systems.
Stability control systems require wheel slip and vehicle sideslip angle as part of the
control logic [5]. Unfortunately, these values are not directly available without the
presence of dedicated (and expensive) speed-over-ground sensors. Without direct
measurements, tire slip is estimated by comparing values from wheel speed sensors to
an estimate of the vehicle velocity (computed from the four wheel speeds and often
other powertrain sensors). However, under high slip conditions, where stability
control systems are most often required, this estimate of vehicle speed becomes less
accurate. In addition, many stability control systems must integrate noisy and biased
sensors in order to obtain slip angle estimates [6, 7]. Other systems utilize non-linear
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 129

observers to estimate the slip angle from a yaw rate measurement [8]. In all of these
cases, the error associated with estimation places severe constraints on the control
algorithm employed, particularly as the vehicle approaches neutral steer, where
observation of sideslip from yaw rate measurements becomes impossible. Other
methods for estimating vehicle sideslip angle by using vision [9] or an external
vehicle speed-measuring unit [10] have been proposed, but these are more suited to a
test track than series production.
With GPS, however, these critical values can be measured instead of estimated.
GPS can provide three-dimensional velocity of the vehicle with an accuracy of 5 cm/s
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(1) in each axis claimed by receiver manufacturers. In fact, the actual tests reported
in this paper demonstrate that this claim is rather conservative. Previously, such
accuracy required a correction system like the Wide Area Augmentation System
(WAAS) [11] or coast guard differential corrections to remove SA (minus some
latency with broadcasting the corrections). However, since SA was removed from
the GPS signal, more accurate velocity measurements are available without any
corrections. While the accuracy of velocity measurements using GPS may seem
surprising in light of the positioning accuracy, velocity is not obtained by simply
differentiating the position measurements. Unlike position determination, which uses
the code phase of the signal, GPS velocity measurements can be calculated from a
single GPS receiver antenna pair by using the 19 cm (1575.42 MHz) GPS carrier wave
in one of two ways. In the ®rst method, changes in the carrier wave frequency ± which
is tracked by the phase-lock loop or frequency-lock loop in the receiver ± are inter-
preted as the Doppler shift between the receiver and the satellite. From knowledge of
the satellite locations and velocities, these Doppler shifts can be mapped into the
absolute speed of the receiver. Alternately, the change in carrier phase between
successive samples can be used to estimate the velocity of the vehicle. This method,
used by some receivers, introduces an effective latency of half a sample period in the
velocity that must be removed before comparing to other velocity signals such as
wheel speeds.
The system described in this paper requires only one antenna/receiver pair ± as
opposed to the higher accuracy Differential GPS (DGPS) systems used in other work ±
and could be based around receivers for navigation or in-car services. This would
certainly require a hardware upgrade from most existing receivers to match the
capabilities described in this paper, but no additional devices are required. In the
proposed system, the GPS measurements are also used to estimate the yaw rate sensor
bias in order to provide accurate heading information. With this information, the
velocity can be referred to the vehicle frame of reference, giving longitudinal and
lateral components. The slip angle can then be calculated directly from these
components while tire longitudinal slip can be found by combining the longitudinal
velocity with the wheel speed measurements. Alternatively, a 2-antenna GPS
system can be used to provide vehicle heading more easily, though at the cost of
 130 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.

additional hardware. Such systems have been used successfully to provide aircraft
heading information [12, 13] as well as used to calibrate aircraft sideslip angle sensors
[14].
This paper discusses the theoretical limits placed on the measurements of slip and
slip angle by various noise sources inherent in GPS. The feasibility of the proposed
measurement scheme is demonstrated by a series of experiments performed on a
Mercedes M-class vehicle equipped with ABS speed sensors and a KVH Fiber Optic
Gyro. The vehicle also has a Novatel Millennium GPS antenna/receiver that provides
velocity measurements at 10 Hz. A high-resolution (1000 counts/rev) wheel speed
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sensor was also added to the vehicle for some of the tests; other tests employed the
stock wheel speed sensors.

2. OVERVIEW OF VEHICLE MEASUREMENTS

USING GPS VELOCITY

This section provides an overview of the method for calculating the various vehicle
states from GPS velocity. Speci®cs and implementation details follow in the next
section.

2.1. Measurement of Wheel Slip

Wheel slip can be determined by taking the difference between the GPS velocity
measurement (along the tire's longitudinal axis) and a wheel speed sensor measure-
ment. In this work, under the assumption of small angles, no distinction was made
between the velocity along the longitudinal axis of the tire and the velocity of the
vehicle. The wheel speed sensor can be calibrated from GPS velocity measurements
during times of normal operation as in [15]. This calibration also gives the effective
radius used in the SAE standard de®nition of tire slip for the undriven wheels.

2.2. Measurement of the Vehicle Sideslip Angle

The body sideslip angle ( in Fig. 1) is the angle between the vehicle's velocity vector
measured at the center of gravity (CG) and the vehicle centerline. GPS velocity
measurements provide the magnitude and direction of the vehicle velocity in global
(earth-®xed) coordinates. The orientation of the centerline is then determined from
integration of a yaw gyro or from a GPS attitude system consisting of a single receiver
with 2 antennas.
The measured sideslip angle can then be moved to any part of the vehicle
(including the CG to determine the body sideslip angle) by translating the velocity at
the GPS antenna to the CG of the vehicle. This requires knowledge of the angular
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 131

velocity of the vehicle from either a yaw gyro or differentiation of the GPS heading
measurement from a 2-antenna system.
Improved accuracy for vehicles with large amounts of roll can be obtained by
subtracting out the component of velocity caused by vehicle roll in the GPS velocity
measurements. The velocity due to vehicle roll can be approximated by the roll rate
times the lever arm from the roll axis of the car to the GPS antenna. The roll rate can
be measured from a gyro oriented along the roll axis (or, in practice along the
longitudinal axis of the vehicle) or from differentiation of a roll measurement from
sensors such as accelerometers and 2-antenna GPS roll measurements. Of course
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the entire concept of a roll center or roll axis is an approximation since these
constructions are instantaneous and change with vehicle motion. However, because
the approximate lever arm is the distance from the roll axis to the roof, the arm is long
enough to be relatively insensitive to changes in the roll axis height. Although no roll
compensation has been included in this work, roll rate measurements were taken to
get an approximate estimate of the error induced by neglecting vehicle roll. In the
experiments performed in this paper, neglecting velocities due to vehicle roll
contributed to about a half a degree of slip angle measurement noise on an SUV.
Experiments on a passenger car showed much less effect from roll motion.

2.3. Measurement of the Tire Slip Angle

The tire slip angle (f and r in Fig. 1) is determined by the tire's longitudinal axis
and the vehicle velocity vector at the center of the tire. The direction of travel of
each tire can be calculated by translating the vehicle velocity at the GPS antenna to
the tire using either the simpli®ed two wheel vehicle model or a full 4-wheel re-
presentation. The direction of the tire can be calculated from the orientation of the
vehicle centerline (as discussed above) and the relative position of the wheel to the
vehicle (from a steer angle measurement and information about the wheel
suspension).

3. THE VEHICLE STATE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

Figure 1 shows a schematic of a 2-wheel vehicle model. All vectors and angles in the
®gure are drawn to illustrate positive sign conventions. It is important to note that this
sign convention associates positive forces with negative slip angles as shown in
Equation (1).
Fyf ˆ ÿCf f
…1†
Fyr ˆ ÿCr r
Cornering stiffnesses are taken as positive in this convention.
 132 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.
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Fig. 1. Two-wheel vehicle model.

The key to using GPS velocity measurements for vehicle state determination is to
translate the velocities into vehicle-®xed coordinates. This requires knowledge of the
orientation of the vehicle centerline in space, referred to here as the vehicle heading.
In this paper, a yaw gyro is used to determine the vehicle heading. Since this requires
integration of the signal, the yaw rate bias must ®rst be removed. A simple model of
the gyro which assumes the scale factor is known and that the sensor output consists of
the true vehicle yaw rate r plus a constant offset or bias gbias and a white sensor noise
wgyro is shown in Equation (2)
rgyro ˆ r ‡ gbias ‡ wgyro …2†
The measured yaw rate can be used as the input into a Kalman Filter (KF) in order to
estimate the vehicle heading angle and gyro bias. Assuming the gyro bias is
constant, a simple kinematic model of the 2 states is described by [13, 16].
        
_ KF 0 ÿ1 KF 1 wgyro
ˆ ‡ r ‡ …3†
g_ bias 0 0 gbias 0 gyro 0
The measurement model (which de®nes the observation matrix) is described by:
 
Vel KF
GPS ˆ C g ‡ …4†
bias
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 133

where: C ˆ [1 0] if the GPS velocity based heading measurements are being used
to estimate the gyro bias during normal driving conditions (minimal
sideslip);
C ˆ [0 0] if it is desired to estimate the vehicle heading from integrating the
gyro in order to obtain an estimate of the slip angle;
 ˆ random sensor noise.
For example, C may be set to zero if the yaw rate of the vehicle is greater than some
threshold. This way the gyro is integrated to determine the slip angle during heavy
turns.
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The Kalman Filter (KF) is comprised of a measurement update and time update
[17], which is performed at each time step (k). The measurement update is described
by:
Lk ˆ Pk C T …CPk C T ‡ R†ÿ1
Xk ˆ Xk ‡ Lk …ymeas ÿ CXk † …5†
Pk ˆ …I ÿ Lk C†Pk
where: L ˆ Kalman Gain Vector
P ˆ State Estimation Covariance Matrix
C ˆ Observation Matrix
R ˆ Sensor Noise Matrix
I ˆ Identity Matrix
X ˆ State Estimate Vector
A simple trapezoidal integration time update is described by:

t ÿ _

Xk‡1 ˆ Xk ‡ Xk‡1 ‡ X_ k
2 …6†
Pk‡1 ˆ Pk T ‡ Qw
where: X_ is calculated from the linear equation in (3)
 ˆ discretized state matrix in Equation (3)
Qw ˆ discretized process noise matrix
A discussion of how to select the Kalman Filter parameters used in Equations (5) and
(6) can be found in [17]. The trapezoidal (or higher order) integration technique
is essential to reduce the amount of error in the vehicle heading estimate. When no
GPS measurements are available (between measurements or during loss of satellite
visibility) the ®lter uses the time update step (Equation (6)) to integrate forward and
estimate the orientation of the vehicle centerline from the gyro yaw rate measure-
ment.
When the observation matrix (C) is set to zero the slip angle measurement is
simply:
VEL
A ˆ GPS ÿ KF …7†
 134 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.

It is important to realize that when the GPS velocity is based on the change in
the carrier phase from one sample to the next it is an average velocity between the
two sample rates. Therefore, there is a latency equal to one half of the sample rate
that must be applied to the slip angle measurement. It is very critical that all
measurements be aligned in time; otherwise errors arise from latency times of the
measurements.
Alternatively, the orientation of the vehicle centerline can be measured using 2
GPS antennas [1]. The problem of calculating the vehicle sideslip then becomes quite
trivial. The slip angle is simply the difference between the orientation of the GPS
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velocity vector (from one GPS antenna) and the GPS measurement (from the 2-
antenna GPS system) of centerline orientation as shown in Equation (8).
VEL
A ˆ GPS ÿ GPS …8†
By utilizing 2 GPS antennas, errors in the orientation estimate due to integration of
the gyro (arising from errors in the bias estimate, scale factor, integration routine and
integration of a noisy signal) are eliminated. Additionally, the problem of when to use
the GPS velocity measurement to calibrate the gyro and when to use those same
measurements to estimate the slip angle is eliminated.
The measured slip angle is the slip angle of the vehicle at the antenna. It is usually
desired to know the slip angle at the CG of the vehicle (or even at the tires to obtain
the tire slip angle). In order to move the slip angle estimation from the GPS antenna to
any point on the vehicle, the velocity at the antenna must be transformed to that point,
with the addition of any velocity arising from vehicle angular velocity as seen in
Equation (9).
* * * *
V P ˆ VA ‡ !  RA=P …9†
*
where the angular velocity vector ! includes roll, pitch, and yaw rates of the vehicle.
In this work, only the yaw rate r was utilized in the velocity correction (vehicle roll
and pitch were assumed negligible). The slip angle at any point (P) on the vehicle can
then be calculated from the arctangent of the velocity components in each axis of the
vehicle at that point.
 
…VP †y
P ˆ tanÿ1 …10†
…VP †x
where …VP †x and …VP †y are the velocity components in the body ®xed coordinates.
The sideslip of the front and rear tire can be found by moving the slip angle to the
tire and incorporating the measurement of the steer angle as:
 f ˆ f ÿ 
…11†
 r ˆ r
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 135

With knowledge of the vehicle velocity from GPS and wheel speed from ABS
wheel speed sensors, wheel slip becomes another available measurement. Wheel slip
is de®ned by the difference in the wheel speed and the tire's longitudinal velocity as:
…Vtire †x ÿ rtire !ABS
slip ˆ ÿ …12†
…Vtire †x
where …Vtire †x is the velocity along the longitudinal axis of the tire. The wheel speed !
is obtained from the ABS wheel speed sensors and multiplied by the effective rolling
radius of the tire.
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4. MEASUREMENT LIMITATIONS

It is important to understand the noise limitations of the various measurements on the

slip angle measurement. In this section, errors (or accuracies) refer to the 1 standard
deviations of the stochastic errors. The velocity of each GPS satellite is known to
1 mm/s and the 19-cm carrier wave can be measured to 2 mm [18]. Line of sight
velocity measurements with one satellite have shown 5.5 mm/s accuracy without SA
[18]. The total line of sight velocity error can be multiplied by the HDOP (which
depends on satellite geometry, but most typically ranges from 2 to 6) to determine the
overall horizontal velocity error due to satellite line of sight errors. Most other error
sources, such as time delays associated with the Ionosphere and Troposphere, are
common mode and are cancelled when two consecutive measurements are used to
determine the rate of change of the phase of the carrier wave. Preliminary studies with
the Novatel receiver used in the test vehicle have shown velocity accuracies better
than 5 cm/s. Figure 2 shows a data collection of the GPS velocity measurements on a
stationary vehicle. The increase in north velocity errors between 7 and 14 min
illustrates how GPS error can change with satellite geometry and/or GPS multi-path
errors. Figure 3 shows the same set of data in a north-east plot.
A Monte Carlo simulation was used to determine the accuracy of the velocity
directional measurement (the angle Vel GPS ) given a 5 cm/s velocity measurement
accuracy in each axis. Figure 4 shows the directional accuracy of the GPS velocity
measurements (at 10 Hz) as a function of velocity.
It has been shown in [16] that the stochastic error (RMS value) due to integration of
stochastic sensor noise (assuming no errors in integration routine, scale factor and
bias estimate) is:
p
 …t† ˆ gyro TS t …13†
where: Ts ˆ sample rate
t ˆ time
gyro ˆ sensor noise of the gyro
 136 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.
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Fig. 2. GPS velocity accuracy.

The KVH Fiber Optic Gyro used in this work had a 1 noise of 0.02 /s. Therefore
the stochastic error due to integration of the gyro is negligible for short integration
times such at those used in this paper. The error in the slip angle measurement is a
function of the errors in both the centerline orientation determined by the Kalman
Filter and the GPS velocity vector orientation (since the slip angle is the difference in
the two measurements shown in Equation (7)). The standard deviation of a signal
obtained from the addition (or subtraction) of 2 signals assuming the 2 signals are not
correlated is described by:
j k    
2ab ˆ E …a  b†2 ˆ E a2 ‡ E b2 ˆ 2a ‡ 2b …14†

Therefore (from Fig. 4, and Equations (13) and (14)) the slip angle measurement noise
at 25 m/s would be about 0.12 . It is important to remember that these are only the
stochastic errors in the system and do not include any errors arising from scale factor
error, bias estimate error, or integration routine. All other errors in heading estimation
would be added to the error in the slip angle measurement.
Figures 5±6 show a test run done on a freeway. Figure 5 shows the GPS velocity
and ABS velocity along with the wheel slip. The ABS velocity is calculated from the
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 137
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Fig. 3. GPS velocity accuracy.

angular velocity of the ABS wheel speed sensors. The wheel speed sensors were over
sampled at 1000 Hz and run through a 100 point moving average ®lter in order to
reduce the quantization noise on the wheel speed measurement. The wheel radius was
calibrated by assuming that the wheel slip for zero acceleration was zero. This
obviously neglects both road grade and the combination of rolling resistance and
aerodynamic drag on the driven wheels. This is a relatively small, though ®nite, error
source for radial tires (a more rigorous approach to radius estimation for driven
wheels can be found in [19]). Road grade was not a problem in the following
experiments due to the ¯at testing area. However, in areas with signi®cant elevation
changes, grade can be removed by using the horizontal and vertical GPS velocity
measurements [20]. Due to the high accuracy of the GPS velocity measurements, the
resulting wheel slip measurements display very little noise.
Figure 6 shows the orientation of the vehicle centerline (integrated gyro heading)
and the orientation of the GPS velocity vector together with the difference between
the 2 measurements. Since the vehicle sideslip angle is negligible for this stretch of
highway (especially between 200 and 260 s where the heading is constant) this plot
illustrates the GPS heading measurement noise. The noise on the difference between
the integrated heading and GPS velocity heading for constant heading in Figure 6 is
 138 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.
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Vel
Fig. 4. Simulated accuracy of the GPS velocity vector orientation angle ( GPS ) in degrees.

0.11 which is close to the predicted noise in Figure 4. The large spikes in the GPS
data are due to loss of GPS signal while driving under overpasses. Loss of GPS
satellites is known within the receiver, so that during loss of satellite connections the
GPS data can be ignored in favor of integrated inertial sensors [16, 21].
As mentioned previously, vehicle heading can be obtained from a multiple GPS
antenna system (as opposed to integration of a gyro) in order to determine the vehicle
slip angle. The noise in heading from a 2-antenna GPS system with a 1 m baseline is
0.1 [1]. Therefore (from Equation (14) and Fig. 4) the slip angle measurement noise
using the GPS velocity heading in conjunction with a 2 GPS antenna vehicle heading
measurement at 25 m/s for example would be 0.15 . Again the advantages of the 2-
antenna GPS attitude system are that there are no other error sources and both
measurements are aligned in time. Hence, errors due to integrating biases and
latencies can be eliminated at the cost of a small increase in stochastic error. It is clear
from these results that the noise levels associated with GPS velocity are not a limiting
factor for longitudinal slip or sideslip angle measurements.
The GPS receiver used in this work had a maximum measurement output rate of
10 Hz. It is possible for GPS receivers to produce higher update rate outputs.
However, as the bandwidth of the phase locked loop (used to track the carrier wave) is
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 139
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Fig. 5. GPS velocity measurements and wheel slip during straight line driving.

increased, in order to provide higher sample rates, the carrier phase measurement
noise is increased by the square root of the bandwidth. The low update GPS
measurements can be combined with models or other sensor measurements to provide
higher update rate estimates of the vehicle states [21]. This is a favorable means of
obtaining higher update rate estimates needed by vehicle safety systems as opposed to
simply increasing the output rate from the GPS receiver since the GPS measurement
noise increases with increased carrier phase tracking bandwidth. Such a system also
enables integration of the inertial sensors during times when the GPS system is not
available, providing state estimates even in the absence of satellite visibility.

5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Longitudinal experiments of acceleration and deceleration (without the use of brakes)

were performed to measure the wheel slip using GPS velocity measurements. Figure 7
shows the tire velocity and GPS velocity along with the wheel slip. The pro-
portionality between wheel slip and acceleration can be seen in the ®gure.
 140 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.
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Fig. 6. GPS velocity based heading measurements.

Additionally, Figure 8 shows a heavy braking experiment. The large spike in the
wheel speed velocity is due to the brakes starting to lock up. However, the ABS system
engages to reduce the slip from about 50% to less than 20% during the braking.
Because the steer angle input to the vehicle in our test system was not known for
initial experiments, the traditional 2-wheel vehicle model equations from steer angle
input to yaw rate and sideslip angle were manipulated to obtain the transfer function
from yaw rate (r) to the vehicle slip angle () shown in Equation (15).
…s† IZ Vx s ‡ …LbCr ÿ amVx2 †
ˆ …15†
r…s† amVx2 s ‡ LVx Cr
The above transfer function and some rough estimates of vehicle parameters were
used to simulate the slip angle for comparison with the experimentally measured slip
angle. It is important to note that the model in Equation (15) is derived from a constant
velocity assumption.
Figure 9 shows the velocity, yaw rate and measured slip angle (as well as the
modeled slip angle) for 4 consecutive 90 turns done on top of a parking structure at
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 141
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Fig. 7. Longitudinal acceleration/deceleration and wheel slip at the rear tire.

about 8 m/s. This experiment should be viewed as a series of four transient responses
and not a constant turning radius experiment. At this speed the sideslip angle
measurement noise (from Fig. 4) is about 0.4 . The additional difference from the
model and measured sideslip angle can be attributed to vehicle non-linearities not
modeled in the simple model shown in Equation (15) (including non constant
velocity), lateral velocities due to neglected vehicle roll, and slight changes in grade
and elevation on the parking structure.
It is important to note that if the slip angle measurement were simply error in the
integration of the gyro, or error due to lag in the GPS velocity measurement, the
measured slip angle would resemble (be a scaled version of ) the yaw rate
measurement. Therefore the measured slip angle would have been nearly identical
for all four turns, since the yaw rate is approximately equal for every turn. However, it
is easy to see that the slip angle on the fourth turn is quite a bit larger than the previous
three turns. This is because the fourth turn was done at a low speed with a high steer
angle input to generate the same yaw rate, resulting in a larger slip angle. It is easy to
see that the measured slip angle matches the modeled slip angle for all four turns.
The next set of experiments was conducted while the use of a front steer angle
measurement was available. A linear string potentiometer was used to measure the
 142 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.
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Fig. 8. Heavy braking experiment during longitudinal driving and the resulting rear wheel tire slip.

steer angle of the front tire. The 2-wheel vehicle model (shown in Fig. 1) from steer
angle  input to derivatives of slip angle  and yaw rate r given in Equation (16) was
then used to validate this next set of experiments.
2  3 2 3
ÿCf ÿ Cr Cr b ÿ Cf a Cf
  6 ÿ1 ‡ 7   6 mVX 7
_ 6 mVX mVX2 7  6 7
ˆ6 7 ‡6 7 …16†
r_ 4 Cr b ÿ Cf a 2
ÿCf a ÿ Cr b 2 5 r 4 Cf a 5
Iz I z VX Iz
Figure 10 shows the velocity and steer angle input for parking lot turns at various
velocities.
Figure 11 shows the measured yaw rate (from the gyro) and the measured slip
angle (using GPS) along with the predicted values from the two wheel vehicle model.
Note that the steer angle input used for the ®rst two turns is quite large. This large
steer angle is outside of the small angle approximation used in the 2-wheel vehicle
model. Consequently, the errors from this approximation can be seen in the yaw rate
and slip angle of the ®rst two turns. Again it is also important to realize the velocity
measured at the antenna includes the total velocity including pitch, roll and bounce.
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 143
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Fig. 9. Measured sideslip angle.

These additional velocities have not been accounted for in this work. Additionally, the
relative effect of these extraneous velocities is higher at lower speeds, which can be
seen in the larger noise in the measurements at the lower velocities.
Finally, Figure 12 shows the front and rear tire slip angles calculated from
Equation (11) using GPS along with the predicted values from the 2-wheel vehicle
model for the same experiment as above. The measured slip angle and tire slip angles
shown here are raw data; fusion of this data with other sensors, models, and/or
®ltering of the data would drastically lower the noise on the measurements.
Additionally these experiments were taken at relatively low (parking lot) speeds
where lateral velocity ± and thus the signal to noise ratio ± is extremely low.
 144 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.
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Fig. 10. Vehicle velocity and steer angle input.

6. CONCLUSIONS

This paper has shown the feasibility of using GPS velocity measurements to obtain
the sideslip angle and wheel slip of a vehicle. An analysis of experimentally obtained
GPS noise was provided to discuss the accuracy of the vehicle state measurements.
The analysis demonstrated that the GPS velocity accuracy is well within the range
required for this application. Experimental data veri®ed these predictions on the GPS
measurement noise and showed that the GPS velocity measurements could be used to
measure the vehicle wheel slip and sideslip angle.
The techniques of using GPS velocity to measure sideslip and wheel slip can be
extended to estimate other vehicle parameters, such as the cornering stiffness of the
tires [21]. Identi®cation of vehicle parameters will allow accurate models to be
combined with GPS velocity based measurements for high update rate estimation and
better accuracy. Identi®cation of the vehicle and tire parameters can also be used for
control and diagnostic systems. Additionally, GPS measurements can be combined
with inertial sensor measurements to provide higher update rate estimation as well as
estimation during short times of GPS outages.
 USE OF GPS BASED VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS 145
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Fig. 11. Measured yaw rate and vehicle sideslip angle.

Fig. 12. Measured tire slip angle.

 146 D.M. BEVLY ET AL.

The future of GPS velocity based measurements looks promising. The Wide Area
Augmentation System (WAAS) is scheduled to be implemented beginning in the year
2001 and with the removal of GPS Selective Availability, accurate velocity
measurements are readily available. Additionally, several new (and stronger) GPS
signals will be added in the new satellites launched, which will increase performance
and robustness. Combining the GPS velocity measurements with other vehicle
sensors and models will allow even better estimation of the desired vehicle states for
stability control systems. Clearly, the fact that the GPS signal is not always available
in the driving environment raises challenges for the use in safety systems. Addressing
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this challenge through a combination of parameter estimation and integration with

inertial sensors is a main avenue for future work.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank DaimlerChrysler for providing the test vehicle. A
special thanks is also given to Shannon Miller, Alex Millie, Patrick Schweizer, and
Brett Youngberg for helping to collect the data provided in this paper.

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