Automatic Merging of Vehicles: Design, Algorithms, Performance

Abstract

Automakers are trying to make vehicles more intelligent and safe by embedding processors which can be used to implement “by-wire” applications for taking smart decisions on the road or assisting the driver in doing the same. Given this proliferation, there is a need to minimize the computational capacity required without affecting the performance and safety of the applications. These applications have stringent requirements on data freshness and completion time of the tasks. Our work studies one such safety-related application, Automatic Merge Control (AMC), which ensures safe vehicle maneuver in the region where n roads intersect. As our contributions, we (i) propose three algorithms for AMC and analyze their behavior assuming single-lane roads and vehicles that allow AMC to control their behavior, (ii) enhance AMC to provide solution for multiple-lane road scenarios and also accommodate mixed traffic (both AMC-controlled and human-driven vehicles), (iii) demonstrate how Dedicated Short Range Communication based wireless communication protocol can be leveraged for the development of AMC and (iv) present a real-time approach towards designing AMC by integrating mode-change and real-time repository concepts for reducing the processing requirements. Simulations and a prototype implementation on robotic platforms demonstrate the advantages of our approach for constructing AMC systems.

G. Raravi—The author is currently at Xerox Research Centre India.