Vehicle motion planning and control at friction limits for improving road safety

Detailed description of the topic:

One of the most important drivers in the automotive industry nowadays is the development of self-driving cars. A possible road accident with the involvement of a driverless vehicle is the source of a constant debate, mainly by the question of liabilities. However, by virtue of their advanced perception and actuator system and huge computational capacity, an automated vehicle's driving skills could exceed those of even a professional driver. Several maneuvers are hard to handle by an average driver. See, for example, drifting and oversteering a car or other special driving techniques at handling limits. Such maneuvers with saturated tires could provide additional possible trajectories in dangerous traffic situations that can be followed, for example, in evasive maneuvers. Motion planning in such cases, considering the new feasible vehicle states at friction limits, is one of the main focuses of the topic. In addition, the reachability of these trajectories should also be considered originating from the vehicle capabilities (e.g., actuator capabilities, etc.), not to mention the path estimation of the other vehicles involved in the traffic situation and the estimation and handling of road boundaries and conditions. After the availability of the motion planner layer, the findings need to be validated first in a simulation environment and finally with a field test with the appropriately designed control system.