Tire Road Friction Coefficient Estimation: Review and Research Perspectives

Many surveys on vehicle traffic safety have shown that the tire road friction coefficient (TRFC) is correlated with the probability of an accident. The probability of road accidents increases sharply on slippery road surfaces. Therefore, accurate knowledge of TRFC contributes to the optimization of driver maneuvers for further improving the safety of intelligent vehicles. A large number of researchers have employed different tools and proposed different algorithms to obtain TRFC. This work investigates these different methods that have been widely utilized to estimate TRFC. These methods are divided into three main categories: off-board sensors-based, vehicle dynamics-based, and data-driven-based methods. This review provides a comparative analysis of these methods and describes their strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, some future research directions regarding TRFC estimation are presented.