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1718 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO.

4, DECEMBER 2013
Real-Time Road-Slope Estimation Based on
Integration of Onboard Sensors With GPS
Using an IMMPDA Filter
Kichun Jo, Student Member, IEEE, Junsoo Kim, Student Member, IEEE, and Myoungho Sunwoo, Member, IEEE
AbstractThis paper proposes a road-slope estimation algo-
rithm to improve the performance and efciency of intelligent
vehicles. The algorithm integrates three types of road-slope mea-
surements from a GPS receiver, automotive onboard sensors, and
a longitudinal vehicle model. The measurement integration is
achieved through a probabilistic data association lter (PDAF)
that combines multiple measurements into a single measurement
update by assigning statistical probability to each measurement
and by removing faulty measurement via the false-alarm function
of the PDAF. In addition to the PDAF, an interacting multiple-
model lter (IMMF) approach is applied to the slope estimation
algorithm to allow adaptation to various slope conditions. The
model set of the IMMF is composed of a constant-slope road
model (CSRM) and a constant-rate slope road model (CRSRM).
The CSRM assumes that the slope of the road is always constant,
and the CRSRM assumes that the slope of the road changes
at a constant rate. The IMMF adapts the road-slope model to
the driving conditions. The developed algorithm is veried and
evaluated through experimental and case studies using a real-time
embedded system. The results show that the performance and
efciency of the road-slope estimation algorithm is accurate and
reliable enough for intelligent vehicle applications.
Index TermsInteracting multiple-model probabilistic data
association (IMMPDA) lter, multiple road models, road-slope
estimation, sensor fusion.
I. INTRODUCTION
M
ANY ALGORITHMS for operating intelligent trans-
portation system applications and autonomous vehicles
rely on precise real-time information on current driving con-
ditions. Knowledge of the road slope is important to improve
the performance of several applications in intelligent vehicles
because road slope is a major source of external loading,
affecting the longitudinal dynamics of a vehicle. For instance,
Manuscript received April 5, 2012; revised March 11, 2013 and April 28,
2013; accepted May 29, 2013. Date of publication June 21, 2013; date
of current version November 26, 2013. This work was supported in part
by the National Research Foundation of Korea under the Korean Ministry
of Education, Science, and Technology under Grant 2011-0017495 and in
part by the Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy through the Industrial
Strategy Technology Development Program under Grant 10039673 and Grant
10042633, and through the Energy and Resource Research and Development
Program under Grant 2006ETR11P091C. The Associate Editor of this paper
was Q. Kong.
K. Jo and J. Kim are with the Automotive Control and Electronics Lab-
oratory, Department of Automotive Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul
133-791, Korea (e-mail: jokihaha@hanyang.ac.kr; junskys@gmail.com).
M. Sunwoo is with the Department of Automotive Engineering, Hanyang
University, Seoul 133-791, Korea (e-mail: msunwoo@hanyang.ac.kr).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TITS.2013.2266438
a longitudinal control system for automated vehicles, such as
a cruise control system or a full-automated intelligent parking
system, requires sufciently accurate road-slope information
to achieve the desired levels of fuel efciency and control
performance. The road grade information is also used for 3-D
map generation for a predictive cruise controller in heavy-duty
vehicles [1] or in a transmission control system [2].
To obtain a road-slope estimate, studies were performed
using many different types of sensors, including GPS receivers,
inertial sensors, pressure sensors, and automotive onboard sen-
sors. GPS receivers have been widely used for road-slope
estimation in research since GPS provides vehicle altitude and
velocity information in the navigation frame. Using 3-D veloc-
ities from a GPS receiver, the road grade can be estimated by
calculating the ratio of vertical velocity to horizontal velocity
[3], [4]. Multiple-antenna GPS receivers can directly measure
the angle relative to the horizon by tracking the carrier-phase
signal at each antenna [3]. Road altitude information can be
also used for measuring the road slope by observing the change
in road altitude [1]. However, road-slope estimation methods
based on GPS are limited by temporary losses of satellite
connection and multipath errors.
In contrast to GPS-based slope estimation methods, on-
board sensor-based estimation methods are not affected by the
external signal environment. The onboard sensor-based road-
slope estimation method can be classied into two categories.
The rst category is based on the longitudinal vehicle model
[1], [2], [5][9]. Using the data from the onboard sensors for
engine or transmission control, the driving wheel torque can
be estimated and used for road-slope estimation by substituting
into the longitudinal vehicle model. However, this method
has problems when the parameters of the longitudinal vehicle
model vary depending on the driving condition, and to obtain
an estimate of driving wheel torque, a vehicle must be operated
without stopping. In addition, the estimation method is not
applicable to certain driving conditions, such as braking or
gear shifting, because these situations are not modeled in the
longitudinal vehicle model. The second category uses a longi-
tudinal accelerometer and vehicle speed sensors. The measured
acceleration from the accelerometer is the sum of acceleration
due to gravity and vehicle longitudinal acceleration. Since the
longitudinal acceleration can be obtained from the differen-
tial of the wheel speed, the gravity effect is calculated by
subtracting the longitudinal acceleration from the measured
value of the accelerometer. The road slope can be derived
1524-9050 2013 IEEE
JO et al.: REAL-TIME ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATION BASED ON INTEGRATION OF ONBOARD SENSORS 1719
from this calculated gravity effect [2], [10], [11]. Unlike the
GPS-based slope estimation method, inertial sensor-based road-
slope estimation algorithms are not affected by GPS signal
conditions or the uncertainty of the vehicle model. However,
these types of sensors frequently suffer from sensor drift and
oscillation problems due to vehicle pitch motions. A pressure
sensor or an air suspension system can also be used for slope
estimation, but these types of sensors have limited accuracy
and are only available for specic vehicles such as heavy-duty
trucks [7], [12].
Since each sensor for road-slope measurement has limi-
tations under certain operation conditions, it is difcult to
estimate the road slope using only one type of a sensor. To
overcome this problem, various estimation theory and sensor
fusion techniques have been applied to estimation algorithms.
A recursive least squares (RLS) lter is an algorithm that
recursively nds the lter coefcients that minimize the sum
of the squares of the difference between the actually measured
and predicted values. The main advantage of an RLS lter is
that it simultaneously estimates not only the road slope but also
the parameters of the longitudinal vehicle model, such as mass,
rolling resistance, and aerodynamic drag [3], [5], [6], [10].
However, the RLS lter has the limitation of stability problems
when persistent excitation is absent.
A Kalman lter (KF) or an extended KF (EKF) has also been
used in research on road-slope estimation to integrate several
types of sensors. Using the uncertainty of the process model and
sensor measurements, the lter can nd the optimal or subopti-
mal state of the road slope. The altitude and velocity data from
the GPS, the altitude data from the barometric pressure sensor,
and the torque data from the torque sensor are combined by the
EKF in [7] and [8], and the combination of the EKF and
the Luenberger observer is presented in [11]. However, because
the lter structures of previous studies are fully dependent
on the sensor conguration, it is necessary to redesign the
lter when the sensor measurements are added or removed. In
addition, the sensor fusion algorithm does not work properly in
the event of sensor component failure due to the lack of fault-
tolerant features. Furthermore, the previous algorithms, which
are based on the KF, only used a constant-slope single model
for road-slope prediction. A constant-slope single-model lter
is difcult to apply in unmodeled driving situations, such as
rapid changes in the road slope.
In this paper, we present a road-slope estimation method that
is based on a probabilistic data association lter (PDAF) with
multiple road-slope models. The PDAF is a statistical approach
to the data association problem that occurs with a multiple
measurement system [13], [14]. All of the measurements from
several sensors are integrated into a single measurement update
by assigning a statistical probability to each measurement. The
statistical probabilities of each measurement are calculated by
taking into account the statistical distribution of the likelihood
of sensor measurements. This data association technique can
be applied in the algorithm for road-slope estimation, which
is based on multiple measurements. In addition, since the
PDAF considers the probability of a false alarm, the faulty
measurement information can be removed from the sensor
fusion algorithm. Furthermore, since PDAF measurements are
independent of each other, it is not necessary to redesign the
lter structure when the sensor conguration is changed.
In addition to PDAF, the multiple-model lter approach is
also applied in this algorithm to adapt to various road-slope
conditions. This approach assumes that the road-slope model
can be represented by a nite number of different road models.
The possible road-slope patterns are described by a set of
models, and the estimation of the road slope is obtained by com-
bining the estimate of specic model lters. The model set of
the road-slope estimation algorithm is composed of a constant-
slope road model (CSRM) and a constant-rate slope road model
(CRSRM). The CSRM is appropriate for road conditions that
have a constant slope, whereas CRSRM is better suited to
the changing point of a road slope. Among several multiple-
model lters, the interacting multiple-model lter (IMMF) is
selected for the road-slope estimation algorithm due to its high
performance and low computational load.
Fig. 1 shows the overall architecture of the road-slope estima-
tion algorithm. The algorithm can be classied into two parts:
a road-slope measurement and a sensor fusion. Three types
of measurements are used for road-slope estimation. The rst
measurement method utilizes two onboard sensors, the wheel
speed sensors, and a longitudinal accelerometer. The road slope
can be calculated from the difference between the measured
acceleration from the accelerometer and the estimated accel-
eration from the differential of the wheel speed. The second
method is GPS-based road-slope measurement, which uses the
ratio of vertical velocity to horizontal velocity. The last mea-
surement method is based on a longitudinal vehicle model with
driving force estimated from the engine and the transmission
control system. Road-slope information from three types of
measurements are incorporated through an interacting multiple-
model PDAF (IMMPDAF). The performance and effectiveness
of the estimation algorithm was veried with two case studies:
a cruise control system and a position control system for the
automatic parking system.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The character-
istics of sensor measurements for a road slope are presented in
Section II. In Section III, theoretical background for a PDAF is
described. The road-slope model set and an IMMF is described
in Sections IVand V, respectively. The experimental results and
case studies are presented in Sections VI and VII, respectively.
Conclusions are given at the end of this paper.
II. ROAD-SLOPE MEASUREMENT
Road-slope estimation for intelligent vehicle applications
should be accurate, reliable, and available under any driving
conditions. Many measurement methods for road-slope esti-
mation have been introduced, but it is difcult to satisfy the
accuracy, integrity, and availability requirements using only
one type of a measurement method. Therefore, in this paper,
three types of measurement methods are combined to fulll the
requirements of road-slope estimation for intelligent vehicles.
A. Acceleration-Based Road-Slope Measurement
Longitudinal acceleration-based road-slope estimation uti-
lizes two types of data to estimate the road slope: The rst
1720 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 1. Overall architecture of the road-slope estimation system.
type is measured acceleration from the accelerometer, and the
other type is longitudinal acceleration, which can be calculated
from the differential of the wheel speed. The longitudinal
accelerometer measures the sum of gravitational acceleration
and vehicle acceleration in the longitudinal direction, as shown
in Fig. 1(a). Since the gravitational acceleration originates from
the road slope, it can be expressed according to the following:
a
accel
=
d
dt
V
whl
+g sin
accel
. (1)
From this relationship, the road slope is calculated by using an
equation:

accel
= sin
1
__
a
acc

d
dt
V
whl
__
g
_
. (2)
To reduce the high frequency noise from the accelerometer and
the wheel speed sensor, a second-order Butterworth lter is
applied to the signals before they were used in the estimation.
This road-slope estimation method has the advantage that
it does not require previous knowledge of the vehicle model
and is independent of the GPS signal condition. However, since
the accelerometer is xed to the body of the vehicle, the angle
measured by the accelerometer is the sum of the road slope and
the pitch motion, which is caused by acceleration, deceleration,
and road abnormality. In addition, the onboard accelerometers
produced by microelectromechanical-system (MEMS) technol-
ogy have the inherent problem that they can drift over time
because of unknown sensor biases or gravitational effects.
B. GPS-Based Road-Slope Measurement
Because GPS supplies 3-D velocity in navigation frame, a
road slope can be determined by taking the arctangent of the
vertical velocity over the horizontal velocity measurement, as
shown in the following:

GPS
= tan
1
(V
Z
/V
XY
) = tan
1
_
V
Z
_
_
V
2
X
+V
2
Y
_
.
(3)
Fig. 1(b) shows the relation of this equation.
The accuracy of the 3-D velocity of a single GPS receiver
is known to be about 25 cm/s in the horizontal axis and
410 cm/s in the vertical axis with a one sigma standard
deviation for the stochastic error [4]. Since the 3-D velocities
are based on the Doppler effect of a GPS satellite signal and
not from differentiation in the position data from the GPS, it is
not necessary to use a high-cost differential GPS or a real-time
kinematic GPS (RTK-GPS) receiver for road-slope estimation.
In addition, the velocity-based measurement is insensitive to
vehicle pitch motion, which comes from vehicle acceleration,
deceleration, and irregularity in the road surface. In addition,
unlike the inertial sensor, the road-slope estimate based on the
3-D velocity from the GPS is not inuenced by the bias of the
sensors.
JO et al.: REAL-TIME ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATION BASED ON INTEGRATION OF ONBOARD SENSORS 1721
Fig. 2. Accuracy of road slope as a function of horizontal speed.
However, the GPS receiver cannot guarantee the reliability
of the road-slope estimate in a poor GPS signal reception
environment, such as an urban canyon area. In addition, since
the equation for GPS-based road-slope estimation contains the
term of the horizontal vehicle velocity in the numerator, as
in (3), the accuracy of the road-slope estimate changes with
the horizontal vehicle speed. The standard deviation of the
GPS-based road-slope estimate can be approximated as the
standard deviation of the vertical velocity
GPS(up)
divided by
the vehicle horizontal velocity V
XY
, i.e.,

GPS
=
GPS(up)
/V
XY
. (4)
Fig. 2 shows the estimated accuracy of the road slope as a
function of vehicle horizontal velocity with accuracy of 10 cm/s
in the vertical velocity [4]. The error in the slope estimate from
the GPS sharply increases in the low speed region below 5 m/s;
therefore, it is not applicable for intelligent vehicle applications.
C. Vehicle Model-Based Road-Slope Measurement
The estimate of the road slope can be obtained by solving for
the longitudinal vehicle dynamics with onboard sensors, which
are used to measure the driving wheel torque and gear position.
Fig. 1(c) shows the free body diagram of a vehicle that shows
the forces acting on the operating vehicle on a sloped road.
The equation of the longitudinal dynamic can be represented
as follows:
ma = F
powertrain
F
gravity
F
airdrag
F
roll
. (5)
The force of the powertrain can be calculated from prior
knowledge of the vehicle driveline and onboard sensors for
driving torque estimation and can be represented as follows:
F
powertrain
=
i
t
i
f

f
R
e
T
e
(6)
where i
t
and i
f
, respectively, represent the gear ratio of the
transmission and nal gears, and
t
and
f
represent the
efciency of the transmission and nal gears. The gear ratio
of the transmission can be obtained from a transmission control
unit (TCU), R
e
describes the effective radius of the tire, and
T
e
is the engine torque, which is obtained from the engine
management controller.
The aerodynamic drag is determined by the vehicle speed V ,
air drag coefcient c
w
, frontal area of the vehicle A
a
, and air
density
air
, i.e.,
F
airdrag
=
1
2
C
w
A
a

a
V
2
. (7)
The rolling resistance is described as
F
roll
= mgc
r
(8)
where c
r
represents the coefcient of rolling resistance.
The gravity force is due to the road slope and can be
represented as follows:
F
gravity
= mg sin . (9)
Although the brake force largely affects the longitudinal
vehicle dynamics, it is difcult to estimate the brake force due
to the nonlinearity of the brake system.
By combining the given equations, the road slope is deri-
ved from

mdl
= sin
1
_
1
mg
_
i
t
i
f

f
R
e
T
e

1
2
C
w
A
a

a
V
2
mgc
r
ma
__
(10)
where a = (d/dt)V
whl
.
The major advantage of longitudinal-vehicle-model-based
road-slope estimation is that it is not necessary to install ad-
ditional sensors. All the sensor measurements for the model-
based algorithm are provided through the sensors of the EMS
and the TCU, which are already mounted in internal combus-
tion engine cars. However, the estimation of the algorithm is not
valid during times that are not considered in the longitudinal
vehicle model, such as braking and gear shifting. In addition,
since the sensors for estimating the powertrain force do not
work while the vehicle is stopping, the algorithm can only
estimate the road slope while the vehicle is moving. A major
drawback of this method is that there is uncertainty regarding
the model parameters, including the vehicle mass, effective
radius of the tire, coefcients of air drag, and the rolling
resistance force. This uncertainty causes a bias problem for
road-slope estimation.
III. SENSOR FUSION USING A PDAF
Three types of measurement systems for road-slope estima-
tion were presented earlier, but it is difcult to satisfy require-
ments for an intelligent vehicle, including accuracy, integrity,
and availability, using only one type of a sensor. Each sensor has
advantages and disadvantages depending on the measurement
principle and operating environment. This is summarized in
Table I. The strengths and weaknesses of each sensor can
compensate for each other using sensor fusion. The PDAF is
used as the sensor fusion algorithm in this paper.
1722 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2013
TABLE I
CHARACTERISTICS OF ROAD-SLOPE MEASUREMENT METHODS
A. Kalman Filter
The PDAF is based on the standard KF equation. The KF is
composed of the recursive processes of prediction and measure-
ment update. At the prediction step, the state and covariance
are predicted using the estimate of the previous step. The
predicted state and covariance of a discrete-time system can be
represented as
x(k|k 1) =F(k 1) x(k 1|k 1) + w(k 1)
P(k|k 1) =F(k1)P(k1|k1)F(k1)
T
+Q(k1)
(11)
where F is a state transition matrix of the system, and w is the
process noise, which is assumed to be drawn from a zero-mean
multivariate normal distribution with covariance Q.
The updated state and covariance can be represented as
x(k|k) = x(k|k 1) +K(k)v(k)
P(k|k) =P(k|k 1) K(k)H(k)P(k|k 1)
K(k) =P(k|k 1)H(k)
T
S(k)
1
v(k) =z(k) H(k) x(k|k 1)
S(k) =H(k)P(k|k 1)H(k)
T
+R(k) (12)
where K is the Kalman gain, v is a measurement innovation,
S is the innovation covariance, H is the output matrix of the
system, and R is the covariance of the measurement.
The KF can be only used for a single measurement system.
There is no validation process for the measurement update. To
estimate the state of multiple measurements, data association
is required for the update step of the KF. Probabilistic data
association is a statistical approach to the data association. A
PDAF is used in the sensor fusion algorithm in this paper.
B. PDAF
The process of the PDAF can be represented by four steps,
as represented in Fig. 3, i.e., predicting state and covariance,
setting up the validation gate and selecting the valid mea-
surements, evaluating association probabilities, and updating
multiple measurements based on the association probabili-
ties [15].
Fig. 3. Process of the PDAF.
TABLE II
GATING THRESHOLDS AND VALUES OF PROBABILITY MASS IN THE GATE
The state prediction and covariance prediction of the PDAF
are performed according to the standard KF equation, i.e.,
x(k|k 1) =F(k 1) x(k 1|k 1) + w(k 1)

P(k|k 1) =F(k1)

P(k1|k1)F(k1)
T
+Q(k1).
(13)
A validation gate represents a threshold that is associated with
the acceptability of the measurements, as conceptually shown
in Fig. 1(d). The validation gate can be obtained from the
measurement innovation v(k) and the associated covariance
matrix S(k), as represented in the following:

V
g
2(k) =
_
z : [v(k)]
T
[S(k)]
1
[v(k)] g
2
_
(14)
where g is the number of sigma. Table II gives the probability
mass, which is the probability that the true measurement will
fall in the validation gate, for various values of g and dimen-
sions of measurement n
z
.
The set of validated measurements at time k is described as
z(k) = {z
j
(k)}
n(k)
j=1
(15)
and the cumulative set of measurements is represented by
Z
k
= {Z
j
(k)}
k
k=1
. (16)
JO et al.: REAL-TIME ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATION BASED ON INTEGRATION OF ONBOARD SENSORS 1723
The single-model minimum variance estimate of the state is
applied in the PDAF approach by
x(k|k)=E
_
x(k)|Z
k

=
n(k)

j=0
E
_
x(k)|
j
(k), Z
k

P
_

j
(k)|Z
k

(17)
where n(k) is the number of validated measurements at time k,

j
(k) is the event during which z
j
(k) is the correct measure-
ment from the target,
0
(k) is the event during which none of
the validated measurements is corrected, and
P
_

j
(k)|Z
k

=
j
(k) (18)
is the probability that the measurement z
j
(k) is from the true
road slope.
Using the nonparametric PDAF, the association probabili-
ties are

j
(k) =e
j
(k)
_
_
b(k) +
n(k)

j=1
e
j
(k)
_
_
1
, j = 1, . . . , m(k)

0
(k) =b(k)
_
_
b(k) +
n(k)

j=1
e
j
(k)
_
_
1
(19)
where
e
j
(k) = [P
G
]
1
N [v
j
(k); 0, S(k)]
b(k) =n(k)[1 P
D
P
G
] [P
D
P
G
V (k)]
1
P
D
is the probability of detection; N[v
j
(k); 0, S(k)] is the
normal probability distribution function with argument v
j
(k),
zero mean, and variance S(k); and P
G
is the probability that
the target measurement falls in the validation region whose
volume is
V (k) = C
n
_
g |S(k)| (20)
with C
n
being the volume of n-dimensional hypersphere with
unit radius (C
2
= , C
3
= 4/3, . . .).
The measurement innovation v(k) for each model can be
represented as
v
j
(k) = z(k) H x
j
(k|k 1). (21)
The estimate conditioned on measurement j being correct is
x
j
(k|k) = x
j
(k|k 1) +K(k)v
j
(k) (22)
with the lter gain is given by
K(k) = P(k|k 1)H
T
S(k)
1
(23)
where P(k|k 1) is the covariance of the predicted state.
The single-model estimate can be rewritten as
x(k|k) =
n(k)

j=0

j
(k) x
j
(k|k). (24)
Fig. 4. Conversion region of road slope.
The combined covariance is

P(k|k) =
n(k)

j=0

(i)
j
(k)
_

P(k|k 1) + ( x
j
(k|k) x(k|k))
( x
j
(k|k) x(k|k))
T
_
. (25)
IV. MULTIPLE ROAD MODELS
In many previous road-slope estimations, a single model that
assumed that the road slope is constant was used for slope
estimation. However, the constant-slope single model cannot
represent the road condition during the changing region of the
road slope, as shown in Fig. 4. To cover the slope conversion
region, the road-slope model should contain the property of
the changing slope. In this paper, we utilize two types of road
models: a CSRM and a CRSRM.
A. CSRM
The CSRM has an assumption that the slope of the road is
always constant. Therefore, the CSRM is appropriate for rep-
resenting the constant road-slope condition shown in Fig. 1(e).
The mathematical representation of the CSRM can be repre-
sented as = constant and

= 0, and the discrete time system
model is
k+1
=
k
.
B. CRSRM
The CRSRM assumes that the slope of the road changes at
a constant rate. This model is better suited to the conversion
point of the road slope than the CSRM, as shown in Fig. 1(e).
The mathematical description of CRSRM is

= constant, the
state-space equation can be described as follows:
x
1
=, x
2
=

d
dt
_
x
1
x
2
_
=
_
0 1
0 0
_ _
x
1
x
2
_
. (26)
The discrete time system model is
_

_
k+1
=
_
1 T
0 1
_ _

_
k
. (27)
1724 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 5. Overall process of the IMMPDAF.
V. ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATION ALGORITHM
BASED ON AN IMMPDAF
To choose the appropriate road-slope model for the cur-
rent road condition, multiple-model ltering theory should be
applied in the road-slope estimation algorithm. Among sev-
eral multiple-model ltering methods, the IMMF is the most
popular due to its high performance and low computational
load [16][26]. In this paper, the IMMF is used for road-slope
estimation.
The IMMF algorithm assumes that the dynamics of a system
can be represented with one of a nite number of system
models. The selected model can be transient to another model
according to the known Markov transition probabilities. The
IMMF is composed of four steps.
1) Interacting: The states from the previous step of each
model interact with the mixed weight that reects the cur-
rent probability of each model and the model transition
probabilities.
2) Model-Matched Filtering: Using the initial mixing state
and the covariance of the previous step, the model-
matched lters are run in parallel for each model.
3) Model Probability Update: The probability of each
model for the current operating condition is evaluated
using the likelihood function of each lter.
4) Estimation Fusion: According to the Gaussian mixture
theory, the combined state and its covariance are calcu-
lated using the model probabilities of each lter.
In this paper, since the three kinds of difference road-slope
measurements are combined with the PDAF, the IMMF should
be extended to be incorporated with the PDAF. The two replace-
ments are required to combine the IMMF with the PDAF. First,
the single measurement lters of each model in the model-
matched ltering step have to be replaced by PDAFs. Then,
the likelihood functions in the model probability update step
are replaced by the likelihood functions of PDAFs. The overall
process of the IMMPDAF lter is represented in Fig. 5, and a
cycle of the IMMPDAF is summarized in Appendix A.
The IMMPDAF assumes that the model transition is gov-
erned by a rst-order Markov process where the current state
variables contain all the information needed to characterize the
probability of the next time step. The model transition probabil-
ity matrix
ji
represents the probability that the model state j
switches to a model state i. These probabilities are assumed
Fig. 6. Test vehicle equipped with electronic stability control.
TABLE III
NOISE SPECIFICATIONS OF VEHICLE ONBOARD SENSORS
TABLE IV
SPECIFICATIONS OF GPS RECEIVERS
to be a priori known parameters and can be represented as a
probability transition matrix:

ji
=
_
0. 9803 0. 0197
0. 0066 0. 9934
_
(28)
where index number i, j = 1 represents the CSRM, and the
index number i, j = 2 refers to the CRSRM. These values were
determined using a statistical method related to the sojourn
times and the sampling interval [19], [27].
VI. EXPERIMENT
A. Experimental Environment
The experiments were carried out with a Tucson IX vehicle
manufactured by Hyundai Motor Company, as shown in Fig. 6.
The onboard sensor data for the acceleration-based estimation
algorithm were obtained from the in-vehicle network, i.e., the
control area network (CAN). The noise specications for the
onboard sensors are shown in Table III. For GPS-based road-
slope estimation, a Garmin 5-Hz GPS device, which is a low-
cost single antenna GPS receiver, was used. The specications
for the GPS receiver are shown in Table IV. The longitudinal-
vehicle-model-based road-slope estimation algorithm was al-
ready implemented in the TCU to avoid excess gear shifting
during uphill driving conditions. We can obtain the road-slope
estimate from the CAN. The resolution of the road-slope data
from the TCU is 0.5%.
The algorithm was implemented in an electronic control
unit, which contained a 32-bit microcontroller, i.e., freescale
MPC5567. For real-time operation, freescale OSEKturbo is
JO et al.: REAL-TIME ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATION BASED ON INTEGRATION OF ONBOARD SENSORS 1725
Fig. 7. Yeongjong Grand Bridge: Test site for the constant-slope condition.
used for the real-time operating system. Since the sampling
of the GPS is 5 Hz, the execution rate of the implemented
estimation algorithm was also 5 Hz.
To verify the accuracy of the road-slope estimation algo-
rithm, an RTK GPS receiver that provides position and altitude
within several centimeters errors was used for the reference
system. The accuracy of the RTK GPS is described in Table IV.
In addition, to analyze the pitch motion, which can affect the
road-slope estimation result, a GPS-aided altitude and heading
reference system (AHRS), i.e., Xsens MTi-G, was used to
measure the vehicle pitch motion.
The IMMPDAF-based road-slope estimation algorithm was
veried on several test sites. To examine the characteristics of
each road-slope measurement and to analyze the performance
of the multiple-model lter, the experiments are carried out
under two road-slope conditions: a constant-slope road (CSR)
condition and a constant-rate slope road (CRSR) condition. In
addition, to verify robustness against a fault of each road-slope
measurement, a test was carried out during various sensor fail
conditions, including GPS outage, large pitch motion, braking
and gear shifting, and vehicle stopping.
B. Constant-Slope Conditions
The experiments in the constant-slope condition were car-
ried out on the Yeongjong Grand Bridge, which is located
in Incheon, South Korea, and is a part of Incheon Interna-
tional Airport Expressway. This bridge was designed with a
certain slope angle, which is about 1.95%, as shown in
Fig. 7. Since there are no big obstacles or buildings around the
bridge, GPS blockages and multipath problems are not serious.
The experiment was performed at a constant speed of about
100 km/h.
Fig. 8(a) shows the road-slope measurement from the three
types of measurement systems. The yellow line represents
the acceleration-based measurement, the green dashdot line
describes the GPS-based road-slope measurement, and the
Fig. 8. Estimates in constant slope. (a) Road-slope data from three types of
measurement systems. (b) CSRM-based KF. (c) CRSRM-based KF.
blue line represents the longitudinal-vehicle-model-based road-
slope measurement. The data from the acceleration-based mea-
surement system is very noisy because the calculation process
for the system contains the derivatives of the wheel speed
sensors. The road-slope data from the longitudinal-vehicle-
model-based measurement system of TCU has a bias error and
very low resolution. On the other hand, compared with the other
types of measurement systems, the road slope from the GPS-
based measurement system has no bias error and small high
frequency noise.
The three types of measurements are applied to KFs based on
the two kinds of system models: a CSRM and a CRSRM. In the
results of the CSRM-based KFs, the high frequency noise from
each measurement is signicantly reduced, but the tracking
response from estimation is very slow for rapidly changing
road slopes, as shown in Fig. 8(b). In contrast, the CRSRM-
based KFs have better tracking performance than the CSRM-
based KFs, but a signicant amount of high frequency noise
still remains, as shown in Fig. 8(c). From these results, we can
conclude that the CSRM model-based KFs are more suitable
for a constant slope, and CRSRM model-based KFs are better
suited to roads with constantly changing slopes.
Fig. 9(a) shows the road-slope estimates of two single-model
PDAFs and an IMMPDAF. Fig. 9(b) describes the estimation
errors of each PDAF-based lter. The road-slope error of the
IMMPDAF is smaller than that of each single-model PDAF
lter because the IMMPDAF adapts to the driving road-slope
1726 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 9. Results of IMMPDAF-based road-slope estimation in the constant-
slope condition. (a) Road-slope estimation using two single models PDAF
(CSRM-PDAF and CRSRM-PDAF) and an IMMPDAF. (b) Comparison of
road-slope errors for single-model lters and a multiple-model lter. (c) Model
probability of IMMPDAF.
TABLE V
RMS ERRORS FOR ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATES
IN CONSTANT SLOPE [UNIT: %]
conditions according to the model probability, as shown in
Fig. 9(c). The model probability was calculated by the IMMF,
and it describes the suitability of the system model under
the given operating conditions. Table V summarize the root-
mean-square (RMS) errors for all the road-slope estimates. The
IMMPDAF shows the best accuracy compared with the other
estimation algorithm,
C. Constant-Tate Slope Conditions
The experiments for the constant-rate slope condition were
carried out on mountain roads, which have rapidly changing
slope conditions. This experiment was performed at a constant
speed of about 60 km/h. Fig. 10 describes the height prole of
the test road: the red dashed line represents the reference height
from the RTK-GPS, and the green line shows the height data
from the low-cost GPS. Since the height data from the low-cost
GPS is inaccurate, as well as the low resolution described in the
Fig. 10. Height of the test site for the constant-rate slope condition.
Fig. 11. Estimates in constant-rate slope. (a) Road slope from three types of
sensors. (b) CSRM-based KF. (c) CRSRM-based KF.
second enlarged gure, it is not feasible for use with road-slope
estimation algorithms.
Fig. 11(a) shows the road-slope measurement from the
three types of measurement systems, and Fig. 11(b) and (c)
show the estimation results of KFs that are based on the two
kinds of road-slope models: CSRM and CRSRM. As in the
previous experimental results for a CSR, the data from the
JO et al.: REAL-TIME ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATION BASED ON INTEGRATION OF ONBOARD SENSORS 1727
Fig. 12. Results of IMMPDAF-based road-slope estimation in the constant-
slope rate condition. (a) Road-slope estimation using two single models of
the PDAF (CSRM-PDAF and CRSRM-PDAF) and a multiple-model PDAF
(IMMPDAF). (b) Comparison of road-slope errors for single-model lters and
a multiple-model lter. (c) Model probability of the IMMPDAF.
TABLE VI
RMS ERRORS FOR SLOPE ESTIMATES IN CONSTANT-RATE
SLOPE [UNIT: %]
acceleration-based measurement system is very noisy, and the
road-slope data from the TCU has a bias error. For the CSRM-
based KFs, since the tracking response from estimation is too
slow for the change in the road slope, it cannot be used for the
constant-rate slope condition.
Fig. 12(a) shows the road-slope estimation results using two
single-model PDAFs and an IMMPDAF. Fig. 12(b) shows the
estimation errors of each lter. The CSRM-PDAF shows a
very large error because the road-slope measurements for the
PDAF lter were located in the out of validation gate; therefore,
the measurement update process for the PDAF did not work.
Fig. 12(c) shows the model probability of the IMMPDAF. The
model probability of the CRSRM is dominant for the constant-
rate slope condition. Table VI summarize the RMS errors for
the road-slope estimates of all the methods, and the IMMPDAF
also shows the best performance compared with the other
method.
Fig. 13. Vehicle driving states and road-slope measurement in the high pitch
conditions. (a) Vehicle speed prole for the high pitch conditions. (b) Road-
slope measurements from three types of measurement system. (c) Master-
cylinder brake pressure and transmission gear position.
D. Large Pitch Conditions
To analyze the effect of vehicle pitch motion on road-slope
estimation, the experiments were carried out during high pitch
conditions. To cause high pitch motion, the test vehicle was
driven on a straight at road with rapid acceleration and de-
celeration, as shown in Fig. 13(a).
Fig. 13(b) shows the road-slope data from the three
measurement systems. The yellow line represents the
acceleration-based measurement, the green line describes the
GPS-based road-slope measurement, the blue line represents
the longitudinal-vehicle-model-based road-slope measurement,
and the pink dashed line describes the vehicle pitch motion
data from the AHRS. For the acceleration-based road-slope
measurement, the effect of vehicle pitch motion is reected in
the measurement. A longitudinal-vehicle-model-based slope
measurement is also affected by the vehicle pitch motion.
The TCU stops road-slope calculation during gear-shifting
and braking situations. This situation can be inferred from the
master-cylinder brake pressure and transmission gear position,
as shown in Fig. 13(c). Only the GPS-based road-slope
measurement system is not affected by vehicle pitch motion.
Fig. 14(a) describes the road-slope estimation error of the
IMMPDAF, and Table VII represents the RMS errors for the
road-slope estimation of all the methods. The estimation result
of IMMPDAF is also not affected by the vehicle pitch motion,
1728 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 14. Results of IMMPDAF-based road-slope estimation in the high pitch
condition. (a) Comparison of road-slope errors for single-model lters and a
multiple-model lter. (b) Model probability of the IMMPDAF.
TABLE VII
RMS ERRORS FOR SLOPE ESTIMATES IN LARGE
PITCH CONDITION [UNIT: %]
Fig. 15. Experimental site for bad GPS condition: Hanyang University.
and its RMS error is 0.07%. Since the experiment was carried
out on a at road, the model probability of CSRM is dominant,
as shown in Fig. 14(b).
E. Poor GPS Conditions
The experiments were carried out at Hanyang University,
Seoul, Korea, as shown in Fig. 15. Since Hanyang University
contains many buildings and obstacles near the road, there are
many GPS blockages and multipath errors. The rectangles (a)
in Fig. 15 represent the areas with undesirable GPS conditions.
Fig. 16. GPS receiver conditions: HDOP and number of satellites used for the
GPS receiver.
Fig. 17. Road-slope estimation in the poor GPS conditions. (a) Master-
cylinder brake pressure. (b) Vehicle speed from wheel speed sensors. (c) Road-
slope data from the three measurement systems and the IMMPDAF.
The horizontal dilution of precision (HDOP) and the number of
satellites in those areas are described in Fig. 16. The IMMPDAF
algorithm did not update the GPS measurements when the
number of satellites in use was less than or equal to ve or when
the HDOP was greater than 2.5.
In addition to experiments under poor GPS conditions, a
braking condition and a vehicle stop condition were also tested
here. Fig. 17(a) shows the brake pressure of the master cylinder.
Braking is dominant in the region of rectangles (b) and (c).
JO et al.: REAL-TIME ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATION BASED ON INTEGRATION OF ONBOARD SENSORS 1729
Fig. 18. Structure of the speed control system in cruise control.
Fig. 17(b) describes the vehicle speed, and the vehicle stopped
for about 15 s during the time represented by the rectangle (c).
Fig. 17(c) shows the road-slope measurement and esti-
mation results from the three measurement systems and the
IMMPDAF, respectively. Since the RTK-GPS receiver cannot
function when the GPS signal is weak, the road-slope estimate
is difcult to verify by comparison with RTK-GPS reference
systems. Therefore, the pitch motion data from the AHRS is
used for the reference road slope, although it contains the bias
pitch angle error. At the GPS blockage region in (a) and vehicle
stop region in (c), the data from the GPS-based road-slope
measurement are unstable, as explained in Section II-B. Since
the PDAF excludes the unstable GPS measurement from the
update of the lter, the results of IMMPDAF are not affected by
the unstable GPS data. At the vehicle braking regions shown in
(b) and (c), the road-slope measurement from the TCU did not
update, as explained in Section II-C. The IMMPDAF excluded
the road-slope data from TCU for measurement update to avoid
the inuence to the estimation results.
VII. CASE STUDIES
To verify the performance and effectiveness of the proposed
road-slope estimation algorithm, we present two intelligent
vehicle control applications as case studies. The rst is a
cruise control system, and the second is an automatic parking
system. The performances of these applications largely depend
on the road-slope information because the road slope is one of
the sources of major external disturbance for the longitudinal
vehicle dynamics.
A. Cruise Control System
The experiment for the cruise control system was conducted
under various road-slope conditions to analyze the effect of
road-slope compensation. The road-slope condition is the same
as that shown in Fig. 10. The longitudinal vehicle speed is
constantly regulated at 60 km/h by the speed control system.
Fig. 18 shows the structure of the speed control system, which
consists of the ve modules of road-slope compensation, de-
sired acceleration calculation, wheel torque coordinator, brake
control, and throttle control. The desired acceleration calcu-
lation module, which is based on the proportionalintegral
feedback control law, derives the target acceleration from the
target and current vehicle velocity. In addition, the road-slope
compensator module, which is considered a feedforward entity,
makes up for the disturbance force due to road slope. The sum
of these results is converted to the desired wheel torque for
manipulating brake and throttle control.
Fig. 19. Vehicle speed for cruise control (a) without considering road slope
and (b) with considering road slope.
Fig. 20. Experimental road condition for position control.
Fig. 21. Structure of the position control system.
To assess the effect of road slope, experiments are performed
without and with the road-slope compensator module, as shown
in Fig. 19(a) and (b). As described in these results, the absence
of the road-slope compensator increases the peak error and
the RMS error. Therefore, the consideration of the slope is
important for improving the control performance of the cruise
control.
B. Longitudinal Position Control for an Automatic
Parking System
In an automatic parking system, not only lateral position
but also longitudinal position should be accurately controlled
for collision avoidance. However, it is hard to control the
longitudinal motion on a sloped road. To validate the perfor-
mance of the road-slope compensator, two experiments have
been conducted, as shown in Fig. 20, for uphill and downhill
road cases. Compared with the previous cruise control system,
the desired velocity calculation module is added for position
control, as in Fig. 21. The module generates the desired velocity
using a position error between the current and target locations.
1730 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 22. Error distance of position control (a) under uphill road conditions and
(b) under downhill road conditions.
The position control experiments are performed with and
without the road-slope compensator module. The rst exper-
iment was carried out under an uphill road. As shown in
Fig. 22(a), omission of the feedforward slope compensator
caused a situation in which the vehicle could not reach the target
position. The second experiment was performed on a downhill
road. In contrast with the uphill case, the position controller
without a road-slope compensator overshots the target position,
as shown in Fig. 22(b).
VIII. CONCLUSION
The road-slope estimation algorithm, which is based on a
PDAF with multiple road-slope models, has been proposed in
this paper. Three types of road-slope measurement systems are
used for the update process of the estimation algorithm. The
rst measurement method is GPS-based road-slope measure-
ment that uses the ratio of vertical to horizontal velocity. The
second measurement method is acceleration-based estimation,
which uses two onboard sensors, the wheel speed sensors, and
a longitudinal accelerometer. The last measurement method is
longitudinal-vehicle-model-based estimation, which is calcu-
lated by a TCU.
The road-slope measurements from each system are in-
tegrated through a PDAF. The measurements from several
road-slope measurement systems are integrated into a single
measurement update by assigning a statistical probability to
each measurement. In addition, faulty road-slope information
can be removed from the update algorithm because the PDAF
checks the probability of a false alarm.
The IMMF is applied to the road-slope estimation algorithm
to cover the various road-slope conditions. The model set of the
estimation algorithm consists of a CSRM and a CRSRM. The
CSRM assumes that the slope of the road is always constant,
whereas the CRSRM assumes the slope of the road changes at
a constant rate. The IMMF chooses the appropriate road-slope
model for the driving condition based on the calculated model
probability.
This IMMPDAF-based road-slope estimation algorithm has
the advantages of adapting to road-slope models and driving
conditions and excluding failed slope measurements. We ver-
ied this algorithm through experiments on several test sites.
The experimental results showed that the estimates of the
algorithm were sufciently accurate and reliable under various
road slope and sensor fail conditions.
The performance and effectiveness of the road-slope mea-
surements were veried with two case studies: speed control
for autonomous vehicles and position control for an automatic
parking system. From the results of the case studies, we con-
clude that the system performance and efciency of intelligent
vehicle control systems can be improved using the road-slope
information. In future work, the authors plan to extend the
use of road-slope information to various intelligent vehicle
applications.
APPENDIX
The one cycle of the IMMPDAF compose of four main
parts.
1) Interacting
Predicted model probability:

i
(k|k 1) = P
_
m
i
(k)|Z
k1
_
=

ji

j
(k 1).
Mixing weight:

j|i
(k 1) =P
_
m
j
(k 1)|m
i
(k), Z
k1
_
=
ji

j
(k 1)/
i
(k|k 1) .
Mixing estimate:
x
i
(k 1|k 1) =E
_
x(k 1)|m
i
(k), Z
k1
_
=

j
x
j
(k 1|k 1)
j|i
(k 1).
Mixing covariance:

P
i
(k1|k1)
=

j
_
P
j
(k1|k1)+
_
x
i
(k1|k1) x
j
(k1|k1)
_

_
x
i
(k1|k1) x
j
(k1|k1)
_
T
_

j|i
(k1).
2) PDA ltering
Predicted state:
x
(i)
(k|k 1) = F(k 1) x
(i)
(k 1|k 1) + w
(i)
(k 1).
Predicted covariance:

P
(i)
(k|k 1) = F
(i)
(k 1)

P
(i)
(k 1|k 1)
F
(i)
(k 1)
T
+Q
(i)
(k 1).
JO et al.: REAL-TIME ROAD-SLOPE ESTIMATION BASED ON INTEGRATION OF ONBOARD SENSORS 1731
Updated state:
x
(i)
(k|k) =
n(k)

j=0

(i)
j
(k) x
(i)
j
(k|k).
Updated covariance:
x
(i)
(k|k)=
n(k)

j=0

(i)
j
(k) x
(i)
j
(k|k)

P
(i)
(k|k)=
n(k)

j=0

(i)
j
(k)

_
_

P
(i)
(k|k 1) +
_
x
(i)
j
(k|k) x
(i)
(k|k)
_
_
x
(i)
j
(k|k) x
(i)
(k|k)
_
T
_
_
.
3) Model probability update
Model likelihood
L
i
k
=p
_
z(k)|Z
k1

p
_
v
i
1
(k), . . . , v
i
n(k)
(k)|n
k
, Z
k1
_
=V (k)
n(k)

0
[n(k)] +V (k)
n(k)+1
n(k)

l=1
P
1
G
N

_
v
i
l
(k); 0, S
i
(k)

l
[n(k)]
where

j
[n(k)] =
_
1
n(k)
P
D
P
G
j = 1, . . . , n(k)
1 P
D
P
G
j = 0
=
_
_
b(k) +
n(k)

j=1
e
j
(k)
_
_
P
D
P
G
m(k)
V (k)
n(k)+1
.
Model probability:

(i)
k
= P
_
m
(j)
k
|z
k
_
=

(i)
k|k1
L
(i)
k

j

(j)
k|k1
L
(j)
k
.
4) Estimate fusion
Overall estimate:
x
k|k
= E
_
x
k
|z
k

i
x
(i)
k|k1

(i)
k
.
Overall covariance:
P
k|k
=

i
_
P
(i)
k|k
+
_
x
k|k
x
(i)
k|k
__
x
k|k
x
(i)
k|k
_
T
_

(i)
k
.
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1732 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2013
Kichun Jo (S10) received the B.S. degree in
mechanical engineering from Hanyang University,
Seoul, Korea, in 2008. He is currently working to-
ward the Ph.D. degree with the Automotive Control
and Electronics Laboratory, Hanyang University.
He has worked on model-based embedded soft-
ware development for automotive control systems.
His main research interests include information
fusion theories, distributed control systems, real-time
systems, and in-vehicle networks. His current re-
search interests include vehicle localization and sys-
tem integration for autonomous vehicles.
Junsoo Kim (S11) received the B.S. degree in
mechanical engineering from Hanyang University,
Seoul, Korea, in 2008. He is currently working to-
ward the Ph.D. degree with the Automotive Control
and Electronics Laboratory, Hanyang University.
He has worked model-based embedded software
development for automotive control systems. His
main research interests include vehicle control and
path planning systems. His current research inter-
ests include lateral and longitudinal control of au-
tonomous vehicles.
Myoungho Sunwoo (M81) received the B.S. degree
in electrical engineering from Hanyang University,
Seoul, Korea, in 1979; the M.S. degree in elec-
trical engineering from the University of Texas at
Austin, Austin, TX, USA, in 1983; and the Ph.D. de-
gree in system engineering from Oakland University,
Rochester, MI, USA, in 1990.
In 1985, he joined General Motors Research
(GMR) Laboratories, Warren, MI, USA, and has
been working in the area of automotive electronics
and control for 28 years. During his nine-year tenure
at GMR, he worked on the design and development of various electronic
control systems for powertrains and chassis. Since 1993, he has led research
activities as a Professor with the Department of Automotive Engineering,
Hanyang University, which is one of the largest engineering schools in Korea.
His work has focused on automotive electronics and control, such as modeling
and control of internal combustion engines, design of automotive distributed
real-time control systems, intelligent autonomous vehicles, and automotive
education programs. He is the author of 65 international journal papers and
68 international conference papers and is the holder of 25 patents. In addition,
he successfully accomplished more than 50 research projects with the Korean
government and automotive companies such as Hyundai, Kia, Mando, Hyundai
MOBIS, Freescale, and many others. He has continuously served as a Consul-
tant for the Korean government and the automotive industry.
Dr. Sunwoo currently serves as the Chair of the Steering Committee for
the Green Car Strategy Forum of the Ministry of the Knowledge Economy
and is also an Academician of the National Academy of Engineering of
Korea. His laboratory, i.e., ACE Laboratory, has been selected as a National
Research Laboratory by the Korean government because of its outstanding
research accomplishments. His autonomous vehicle named A1 won the rst
and second National Autonomous Vehicle Competitions organized by Hyundai
Motor Company hosted in Korea in November 2010 and September 2012,
respectively. In recognition of his distinguished achievements, he has received
notable awards, such as the Grand Award of AcademicIndustrial Cooperation
from the Korean AcademicIndustrial Foundation, the Best Scientist/Engineer
Award of the Month from the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology, and
the Award for Technology Innovation from the Prime Minister of Korea.

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