Abstract:A new algorithm for vehicle mass estimation was studied based on the on road test of an in wheel motor vehicle. Containing the road gradient information in the longitudinal accelerometer signal, the algorithm removed the road grade from the longitudinal dynamics of the vehicle. Then, two different recursive least squares(RLS) schemes were proposed to estimate the driving resistance and the mass independently based on the acceleration partition. Experiments on the asphalt road, the plastic runway, and the gravel road as well as experiments with road grade were carried out. The estimation errors and the result convergence were analyzed. Then, according to several critical operating conditions, the adaptability of the algorithm was improved. The experimental data show that the estimation error is within 2.5% with various masses and different roads, which indicates that the algorithm can accurately estimate mass and its engineering application is valuable.