Behavior planning and decision-making are some of the biggest challenges for highly automated systems. A fully automated vehicle (AV) is confronted with numerous tactical and strategical choices. Most state-of-the-art AV platforms implement tactical and strategical behavior generation using finite state machines. However, these usually result in poor explainability, maintainability and scalability. Research in robotics has raised many architectures to mitigate these problems, most interestingly behavior-based systems and hybrid derivatives. Inspired by these approaches, we propose a hierarchical behavior-based architecture for tactical and strategical behavior generation in automated driving. It is a generalizing and scalable decision-making framework, utilizing modular behavior blocks to compose more complex behaviors in a bottom-up approach. The system is capable of combining a variety of scenario- and methodology-specific solutions, like POMDPs, RRT* or learning-based behavior, into one understandable and traceable architecture. We extend the hierarchical behavior-based arbitration concept to address scenarios where multiple behavior options are applicable but have no clear priority against each other. Then, we formulate the behavior generation stack for automated driving in urban and highway environments, incorporating parking and emergency behaviors as well. Finally, we illustrate our design in an explanatory evaluation.
Transilvania University of Brasov（布拉索夫特兰西瓦尼亚大学）；Elektrobit Automotive（易特驰汽车）；Széchenyi István University of Gyõr（杰尔塞切尼·伊什特万大学）
Driving in dynamically changing traffic is a highly challenging task for autonomous vehicles, especially in crowded urban roadways. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) system of a driverless car must be able to arbitrate between different driving strategies in order to properly plan the car's path, based on an understandable traffic scene model. In this paper, an AI behavior arbitration algorithm for Autonomous Driving (AD) is proposed. The method, coined AIBA (AI Behavior Arbitration), has been developed in two stages: (i) human driving scene description and understanding and (ii) formal modelli…
Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute（上海期智研究院）；Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University（清华大学交叉信息研究院）；Novauto Technology Co. Ltd（超星未来科技有限公司）
Discovering hazardous scenarios is crucial in testing and further improving driving policies. However, conducting efficient driving policy testing faces two key challenges. On the one hand, the probability of naturally encountering hazardous scenarios is low when testing a well-trained autonomous driving strategy. Thus, discovering these scenarios by purely real-world road testing is extremely costly. On the other hand, a proper determination of accident responsibility is necessary for this task. Collecting scenarios with wrong-attributed responsibilities will lead to an overly conservative au…
In parallel with the advancement of Automated Driving (AD) functions, teleoperation has grown in popularity over recent years. By enabling remote operation of automated vehicles, teleoperation can be established as a reliable fallback solution for operational design domain limits and edge cases of AD functions. Over the years, a variety of different teleoperation concepts as to how a human operator can remotely support or substitute an AD function have been proposed in the literature. This paper presents the results of a literature survey on teleoperation concepts for road vehicles. Furthermor…
Institute of Automotive Technology, Technical University of Munich（慕尼黑工业大学汽车技术研究所）
The objective of this paper is to propose a systematic analysis of the sensor coverage of automated vehicles. Due to an unlimited number of possible traffic situations, a selection of scenarios to be tested must be applied in the safety assessment of automated vehicles. This paper describes how phenomenological sensor models can be used to identify system-specific relevant scenarios. In automated driving, the following sensors are predominantly used: camera, ultrasonic, \radar and \lidarohne. Based on the literature, phenomenological models have been developed for the four sensor types, which …
Technische Universität Kaiserslautern（凯泽斯劳滕工业大学）；German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)（德国人工智能研究中心）
Within the context of Industry 4.0, mobile robot systems such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are one of the major areas challenging current communication and localization technologies. Due to stringent requirements on latency and reliability, several of the existing solutions are not capable of meeting the performance required by industrial automation applications. Additionally, the disparity in types and applications of unmanned vehicle (UV) calls for more flexible communication technologies in order to address their specific requirements. In this pape…
A Systematic Survey of Control Techniques and Applications in Connected and Automated Vehicles
Tongji University（同济大学）；Jilin University（吉林大学）；Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学）；University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校）；Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）；Zhejiang University（浙江大学）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学）
Chalmers University of Technology（查尔姆斯理工大学）；University of Gothenburg（哥德堡大学）；RISE Research Institutes of Sweden（瑞典国家研究院）
The technology in the area of automated vehicles is gaining speed and promises many advantages. However, with the recent introduction of conditionally automated driving, we have also seen accidents. Test protocols for both, conditionally automated (e.g., on highways) and automated vehicles do not exist yet and leave researchers and practitioners with different challenges. For instance, current test procedures do not suffice for fully automated vehicles, which are supposed to be completely in charge for the driving task and have no driver as a back up. This paper presents current challenges of …
The transition from today's mostly human-driven traffic to a purely automated one will be a gradual evolution, with the effect that we will likely experience mixed traffic in the near future. Connected and automated vehicles can benefit human-driven ones and the whole traffic system in different ways, for example by improving collision avoidance and reducing traffic waves. Many studies have been carried out to improve intersection management, a significant bottleneck in traffic, with intelligent traffic signals or exclusively automated vehicles. However, the problem of how to improve mixed tra…
While automated driving technology has achieved a tremendous progress, the scalable and rigorous testing and verification of safe automated and autonomous driving vehicles remain challenging. This paper proposes a learning-based falsification framework for testing the implementation of an automated or self-driving function in simulation. We assume that the function specification is associated with a violation metric on possible scenarios. Prior knowledge is incorporated to limit the scenario parameter variance and in a model-based falsifier to guide and improve the learning process. For an exe…
Generative Models and Connected and Automated Vehicles: A Survey in Exploring the Intersection of Transportation and AI
School of Engineering Science（工程科学学院）；Shandong Xiehe University（山东谢河大学）；Department of Electrical Engineering（电气工程系）；Northwestern University（西北大学）；Department of Computer Science（计算机科学系）；Pace University（帕克大学）
Automated Driving Architecture and Operation of a Light Commercial Vehicle
İstanbul Okan University（伊斯坦布尔奥坎大学）；Yıldız Technical University（耶尔德兹技术大学）；TÜBİTAK BİLGEM Cyber Security Institute（土耳其科学技术研究理事会信息科学与安全研究所）；TOFAŞ Research and Development Center（托法什研发中心）；The Ohio State University（俄亥俄州立大学）
A Vehicle-in-the-Loop Simulator with AI-Powered Digital Twins for Testing Automated Driving Controllers
Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology（电子工程系，埃因霍温理工大学）；Siemens Digital Industries Software（西门子数字工业软件）；Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology（机械工程系，埃因霍温理工大学）
With advances in sensing, computing, and communication technologies, Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) are becoming feasible. The advent of CAVs presents new opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of individual vehicles. However, testing and verifying energy-efficient autonomous driving systems are difficult due to safety considerations and repeatability. In this paper, we present a co-simulation platform to develop and test novel vehicle eco-autonomous driving technologies named InfoRich, which incorporates the information from on-board sensors, V2X communications, and map datab…
Steins;Gate Drive: Semantic Safety Arbitration over Structured Futures for Latency-Decoupled LLM Planning
Institute for Wireless Communication and Navigation（无线通信与导航研究所）；RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau（凯撒斯劳滕-兰道大学）；German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence（德国人工智能研究中心）
Technische Universität Braunschweig（布伦瑞克工业大学）；Institute of Control Engineering at Technische Universität Braunschweig（布伦瑞克工业大学控制工程研究所）
For future application of automated vehicles in public traffic, ensuring functional safety is essential. In this context, a hazard analysis and risk assessment is an important input for designing functionally vehicle automation systems. In this contribution, we present a detailed hazard analysis and risk assessment (HARA) according to the ISO 26262 standard for a specific Level 4 application, namely an unmanned protective vehicle operated without human supervision for motorway hard shoulder roadworks.
Institute of Automotive Technology, Technical University of Munich（慕尼黑工业大学汽车技术研究所）
For the offline safety assessment of automated vehicles, the most challenging and critical scenarios must be identified efficiently. Therefore, we present a new approach to define challenging scenarios based on a sensor setup model of the ego-vehicle. First, a static optimal approaching path of a road user to the ego-vehicle is calculated using an A* algorithm. We consider a poor perception of the road user by the automated vehicle as optimal, because we want to define scenarios that are as critical as possible. The path is then transferred to a dynamic scenario, where the trajectory of the ro…
Autonomy and connectivity are considered among the most promising technologies to improve safety, mobility, fuel and time consumption in transportation systems. Some of the fuel efficiency benefits of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) can be realized through platooning. A platoon is a virtual train of CAVs that travel together following the platoon head, with small gaps between them. Vehicles may also reduce travel time by lane changing. In this paper, we devise an optimal control-based trajectory planning model that can provide safe and efficient trajectories for the subject vehicle and…
SEG-JPEG: Simple Visual Semantic Communications for Remote Operation of Automated Vehicles over Unreliable Wireless Networks
Autonomous Driving and Intelligent Transport Group（自动驾驶与智能交通组）；Oxford Brookes University（奥克斯福德布鲁克斯大学）；Oxfordshire County Council（奥克斯福德郡县议会）；Department for Transport（交通部）；School of Engineering, Computing & Mathematics（工程、计算与数学学院）；Artificial Intelligence, Data Analysis and Systems Institute（人工智能、数据分析与系统研究所）
Automated driving in urban scenarios requires efficient planning algorithms able to handle complex situations in real-time. A popular approach is to use graph-based planning methods in order to obtain a rough trajectory which is subsequently optimized. A key aspect is the generation of trajectories implementing comfortable and safe behavior already during graph-search while keeping computation times low. To capture this aspect, on the one hand, a branching strategy is presented in this work that leads to better performance in terms of quality of resulting trajectories and runtime. On the other…
University of Applied Science Ruhr West（鲁尔西部应用科学大学）；University of Duisburg-Essen（杜伊斯堡-埃森大学）
Human emotion detection in automated vehicles helps to improve comfort and safety. Research in the automotive domain focuses a lot on sensing drivers' drowsiness and aggression. We present a new form of implicit driver-vehicle cooperation, where emotion detection is integrated into an automated vehicle's decision-making process. Constant evaluation of the driver's reaction to vehicle behavior allows us to revise decisions and helps to increase the safety of future automated vehicles.
Are automated vehicles really safer than manually driven vehicles? If so, how would we know? Answering this question has spurred a contentious debate. Unfortunately, several issues make answering this question difficult for the foreseeable future. First, how do we measure safety? Second, how can we keep track of automated vehicle (AV) safety? Finally, how do we determine what is or what is not an AV? Until these questions are addressed, it will continue to be difficult to determine whether or when AVs might really be safer than manually driven vehicles.
University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Hyundai Motor Group（现代汽车集团）
We present a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation setup for repeatable testing of Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs) in dynamic, real-world scenarios. Our goal is to test control and planning algorithms and their distributed implementation on the vehicle hardware and, possibly, in the cloud. The HIL setup combines PreScan for perception sensors, road topography, and signalized intersections; Vissim for traffic micro-simulation; ETAS DESK-LABCAR/a dynamometer for vehicle and powertrain dynamics; and on-board electronic control units for CAV real time control. Models of traffic and signalized …
FZI Research Center for Information Technology（FZI 信息技术研究中心）；Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)（卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院）
While motion planning techniques for automated vehicles in a reactive and anticipatory manner are already widely presented, approaches to cooperative motion planning are still remaining. In this paper, we present an approach to enhance common motion planning algorithms, that allows for cooperation with human-driven vehicles. Unlike previous approaches, we integrate the prediction of other traffic participants into the motion planning, such that the influence of the ego vehicle's behavior on the other traffic participants can be taken into account. For this purpose, a new cost functional is pre…
Technische Universität Braunschweig（布伦瑞克工业大学）；Institute of Control Engineering（控制工程研究所）
The introduction of automated vehicles without permanent human supervision demands a functional system description, including functional system boundaries and a comprehensive safety analysis. These inputs to the technical development can be identified and analyzed by a scenario-based approach. Furthermore, to establish an economical test and release process, a large number of scenarios must be identified to obtain meaningful test results. Experts are doing well to identify scenarios that are difficult to handle or unlikely to happen. However, experts are unlikely to identify all scenarios poss…
University of Michigan（密歇根大学）；University of Tennessee Knoxville（田纳西大学诺克斯维尔分校）
In this paper we propose a novel observer-based method for anomaly detection in connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). The proposed method utilizes an augmented extended Kalman filter (AEKF) to smooth sensor readings of a CAV based on a nonlinear car-following motion model with time delay, where the leading vehicle's trajectory is used by the subject vehicle to detect sensor anomalies. We use the classic $χ^2$ fault detector in conjunction with the proposed AEKF for anomaly detection. To make the proposed model more suitable for real-world applications, we consider a stochastic communication…
We introduce a prioritized system-optimal algorithm for mandatory lane change (MLC) behavior of connected and automated vehicles (CAV) from a dedicated lane. Our approach applies a cooperative lane change that prioritizes the decisions of lane changing vehicles which are closer to the end of the diverging zone (DZ), and optimizes the predicted total system travel time. Our experiments on synthetic data show that the proposed algorithm improves the traffic network efficiency by attaining higher speeds in the dedicated lane and earlier MLC positions while ensuring a low computational time. Our a…
The development of safety applications for Connected Automated Vehicles requires testing in many different scenarios. However, the recreation of test scenarios for evaluating safety applications is a very challenging task. This is mainly due to the randomness in communication, difficulty in recreating vehicle movements precisely, and safety concerns for certain scenarios. We propose to develop a standalone Remote Vehicle Emulator that can reproduce V2V messages of remote vehicles from simulations or previous tests. This is expected to accelerate the development cycle significantly. Remote Vehi…
The main goal of this paper is to introduce the data collection effort at Mcity targeting automated vehicle development. We captured a comprehensive set of data from a set of perception sensors (Lidars, Radars, Cameras) as well as vehicle steering/brake/throttle inputs and an RTK unit. Two in-cabin cameras record the human driver's behaviors for possible future use. The naturalistic driving on selected open roads is recorded at different time of day and weather conditions. We also perform designed choreography data collection inside the Mcity test facility focusing on vehicle to vehicle, and v…
California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；Ford Research and Innovation Center（福特研究与创新中心）；University of Michigan（密歇根大学）
This work gives introduction to traffic control by connected automated vehicles. The influence of vehicle control on vehicular traffic and traffic control strategies are discussed and compared. It is highlighted that vehicle-to-everything connectivity allows connected automated vehicles to access the state of the traffic behind them such that feedback can be utilized to mitigate evolving congestions. Numerical simulations demonstrate that such connectivity-based traffic control is beneficial for smoothness and energy efficiency of highway traffic. The dynamics and stability of traffic flow, un…
Connected and automated vehicles have shown great potential in improving traffic mobility and reducing emissions, especially at unsignalized intersections. Previous research has shown that vehicle passing order is the key influencing factor in improving intersection traffic mobility. In this paper, we propose a graph-based cooperation method to formalize the conflict-free scheduling problem at an unsignalized intersection. Based on graphical analysis, a vehicle's trajectory conflict relationship is modeled as a conflict directed graph and a coexisting undirected graph. Then, two graph-based me…
Safety is an essential aspect in the facilitation of automated vehicle deployment. Current testing practices are not enough, and going beyond them leads to infeasible testing requirements, such as needing to drive billions of kilometres on public roads. Automated vehicles are exposed to an indefinite number of scenarios. Handling of the most challenging scenarios should be tested, which leads to the question of how such corner cases can be determined. We propose an approach to identify the performance boundary, where these corner cases are located, using Gaussian Process Classification. We als…
This paper proposes a methodology to estimate uncertainty in automated vehicle (AV) dynamics in real time via Bayesian inference. Based on the estimated uncertainty, the method aims to continuously monitor the car-following (CF) performance of the AV to support strategic actions to maintain a desired performance. Our methodology consists of three sequential components: (i) the Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) is adopted to estimate parameter uncertainty relative to vehicular dynamics in real time, (ii) dynamic monitoring of car-following stability (local and string-wise), and (iii)…
Modern Middlewares for Automated Vehicles: A Tutorial
Chair of Embedded Software, RWTH Aachen University（嵌入式软件研究所，亚琛RWTH大学）；Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of the Bundeswehr Munich（航空航天工程系，联邦国防军 Munich大学）
