Experimental vehicles FASCar®-II and FASCar®-E

The main goal of the large-scale research facility FASCar® are scientific studies and analyses in the field of driver assistance and vehicle automation. This includes also studies of human behavior, acceptance studies, test of new assistance systems and automation, as well as user friendliness. FASCar® makes it possible to test and analyze innovative systems and developed functions in a simulated or even real traffic environment

Model Predictive Control System Design of a passenger car for Valet Parking Scenario

A recent expansion of passenger cars’ automated functions has led to increasingly challenging design problems for the engineers. Among this the development of Automated Valet Parking is the latest addition. The system represents the next evolution of automated system giving the vehicle greater autonomy: the efforts of most automotive OEMs go towards achieving market deployment of such automated function. To this end the focus of each OEM is on taking part to this competitive endeavor and succeed by developing a proprietary solution with the support of hardware and software suppliers. Within this framework the present work aims at developing an effective control strategy for the considered scenarios. In order to reach this goal a Model Predictive Control approach is employed taking advantage of previous works within the automotive OEM in the automated driving field. The control algorithm is developed in a Simulink® simulation according to the requirements of the application and tested; results show the control strategy successfully drives the vehicle on the predefined path

Automated Valet Parking as Part of an Integrated Travel Assistance

The integration of automated valet parking (automated search of a parking space and execution of the parking maneuver) in a comprehensive travel assistance approach promises great benefits for a traveler. In particular, it aims at increasing comfort, optimizing travel time and improving energy efficiency for changing means of transport (where one of them is a car) within a whole multimodal travel chain. In this paper an automated valet parking system as part of a travel assistant is presented. Besides giving an overview of the overall system, the main components (namely the environment perception and automation modules of the fully automated vehicle, a mobile phone application as human machine interface and a parking space occupancy detection camera as part of the parking area infrastructure) are described. The system was successfully tested on three different parking areas, where one of these areas was located at Braunschweig main station

Manoeuvre-based cooperative automation for partially, conditionally and highly automated driving

Bei der Entwicklung des teil- und hochautomatisierten Fahrens muss ein besonderer Fokus auf die Gestaltung des Zusammenwirkens des Fahrers mit der Automation bei der Fahraufgabenbearbeitung gelegt werden. Anderenfalls besteht die Gefahr, dass der durch die Automatisierung erhoffte Komfort- und Sicherheitsgewinn nicht erreicht wird. Basierend auf der Betrachtung von bekannten Problemen beim Einsatz einer hohen Automatisierung zielt die Arbeit auf eine Gestaltung einer Automation für das teil- und hochautomatisierte Fahren ab, die es ermöglicht, die Probleme im Zusammenwirken von Mensch und Automation zu vermeiden und einen signifikanten Komfort- und Sicherheitsgewinn zu erreichen. Der Ansatz der Arbeit zur Erreichung der Zielsetzung ist die kooperative Gestaltung des Zusammenwirkens von Fahrer und Automation. Dazu erfolgt eine ausführliche Auseinandersetzung mit der Idee der kooperativen Automation für das teil- und hochautomatisierte Fahren aus ingenieurwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. Dies umfasst die Darstellung des allgemeinen Konzeptes, dessen technische Konkretisierung, die Beschreibung von Ansätzen zur technischen Umsetzung sowie eine ausführliche Evaluierung. Kernelemente des Konzeptes der kooperativen Automation sind die gemeinsame Handlungsplanung und -ausführung sowie die Kompatibilität, welche die Passung der Automation mit dem Fahrer beschreibt. Die Strukturierung des Fahrtablaufes in einzelne Manöver nimmt dabei eine besondere Stellung ein. Der Fokus der Arbeit liegt auf der Automationsfunktionalität. Daher ist die Zielsetzung hinsichtlich der Mensch-Maschine-Schnittstelle die Beschreibung von Konzepten und Methoden zur Bereitstellung verschiedenster Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten, nicht die Beschreibung der Ausgestaltung der Schnittstelle. Da die Ausgestaltung der Mensch-Maschine-Schnittstelle einen erheblichen Einfluss auf die Wirkung der kooperativen Automation beim Fahrer hat, zielt die Arbeit auf die Bereitstellung eines möglichst großen positiven Wirkpotentials hinsichtlich der genannten Ziele ab. Als zentrales Ergebnis der Arbeit ergibt sich, dass eine kooperative Automation für das teil- und hochautomatisierte Fahren helfen kann, die Probleme im Zusammenwirken von Mensch und Automation zu vermeiden und einen signifikanten Komfort- und Sicherheitsgewinn zu erreichen.In the development of partially, conditionally, or highly automated driving the design of the coaction of driver and automation for the joint execution of the driving task has to be in focus especially. When no profound design of this coaction is done, the benefits sought as regards comfort and safety will not be achieved. Based on the analyses of well-known problems when employing high levels of automation, the thesis aims to design an automation for partially, conditionally, and highly automated driving, which allows for these problems in the coaction of human and automation to be avoided, and significant benefits in comfort and safety to be achieved. To attain this objective, the approach of this thesis is the cooperative design of the coaction of driver and automation. For this purpose, the idea of cooperative automation for partially, conditionally, and highly automated driving will be examined in detail from the perspective of engineering science. This comprises the elaboration of the general concept, the technical concretion of this concept, the development of approaches for the technical realisation, and a detailed evaluation. The core elements of the concept are the joint planning and execution of actions as well as the compatibility, which describes the fit of the automation with the driver. Apart from that, the structuring of the whole ride in several compatible manoeuvres will occupy an important position in the thesis. The focus of the thesis is on the automation functionality. Therefore, the objective with regard to the human-machine interface is the development of concepts and methods for providing several communication options, not the concrete design of the interface. Because the concrete design of the human-machine interface significantly influences the effect of the cooperative automation on the driver, the thesis aims to provide the largest possible positive impact potential regarding the avoidance of problems in coaction and the achievement of benefits in comfort and safety. The core result of the thesis is that a cooperative automation for partially, conditionally, and highly automated driving can help avoid the problems in the coaction of human and automation as well as achieve significant benefits in comfort and safety

Object-level fusion for surround environment perception in automated driving applications

Driver assistance systems have increasingly relied on more sensors for new functions. As advanced driver assistance system continue to improve towards automated driving, new methods are required for processing the data in an efficient and economical manner from the sensors for such complex systems. The detection of dynamic objects is one of the most important aspects required by advanced driver assistance systems and automated driving. In this thesis, an environment model approach for the detection of dynamic objects is presented in order to realize an effective method for sensor data fusion. A scalable high-level fusion architecture is developed for fusing object data from several sensors in a single system, where processing occurs in three levels: sensor, fusion and application. A complete and consistent object model which includes the object’s dynamic state, existence probability and classification is defined as a sensor-independent and generic interface for sensor data fusion across all three processing levels. Novel algorithms are developed for object data association and fusion at the fusion-level of the architecture. An asynchronous sensor-to-global fusion strategy is applied in order to process sensor data immediately within the high-level fusion architecture, giving driver assistance systems the most up-to-date information about the vehicle’s environment. Track-to-track fusion algorithms are uniquely applied for dynamic state fusion, where the information matrix fusion algorithm produces results comparable to a low-level central Kalman filter approach. The existence probability of an object is fused using a novel approach based on the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory, where the individual sensor’s existence estimation performance is considered during the fusion process. A similar novel approach with the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory is also applied to the fusion of an object’s classification. The developed high-level sensor data fusion architecture and its algorithms are evaluated using a prototype vehicle equipped with 12 sensors for surround environment perception. A thorough evaluation of the complete object model is performed on a closed test track using vehicles equipped with hardware for generating an accurate ground truth. Existence and classification performance is evaluated using labeled data sets from real traffic scenarios. The evaluation demonstrates the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed sensor data fusion approach. The work presented in this thesis has additionally been extensively used in several research projects as the dynamic object detection platform for automated driving applications on highways in real traffic