Methodology for Specifying and Testing Traffic Rule Compliance for Automated Driving

The introduction of highly-automated driving functions promises to increase safety and comfort, but the safety validation remains an unsolved challenge. Here, the requirement is that the introduction does not reduce safety on public roads. This dissertation addresses one major aspect of road safety: traffic rule compliance. Even an automated vehicle must comply with existing traffic rules. The developed method enables automated testing of traffic rule compliance of automated driving functions. In the first part of the thesis, the state of the art for describing and formalizing behavioral rules is analyzed. A special challenge is posed by the different traffic rules depending on the traffic region. With existing approaches, a separate description and formalization of the behavior rules is necessary for each traffic region or even for individual traffic areas. This shows the necessity to develop new approaches for the abstraction and transferability of the behavioral rules in order to reduce the effort of testing and ensuring traffic rule compliance. The rule compliance criteria are to be integrated into the behavior specification within the functional specification. The objective of this thesis is to develop a method to formalize the limits of traffic rule compliance, based on which fail criteria for system testing are defined and applied. For this purpose, existing traffic rules are analyzed as a basis to identify which behavior constraints are imposed by the static traffic environment. Based on this, a semantic description that is transferable between traffic domains and that links the boundaries of traffic rule compliance to the static traffic environment is developed. The method involves deriving behavioral attributes from which the semantic behavior description is constructed. These behavioral attributes construct the behavior space that describes the boundaries of legally allowed behavior. Furthermore, methods for automated derivation of behavioral attributes from high definition maps are developed, thus extracting the behavioral requirement from an operational design domain. It is investigated which functionalities an automated vehicle has to provide to comply with the behavioral attributes. The attributes are then formalized to obtain quantifiable failure criteria of traffic rule compliance that can be used in automated testing. Finally, building on the state of the art, a test strategy for validating traffic rule conformance is presented. The explicit availability of the behavioral limits results in an advantage in the influence analysis of possible parameters for these tests. Finally, the developed method is applied to existing map material and to test drives with an automated vehicle prototype in order to investigate the practical applicability of the approach as well as the resulting gain in knowledge about traffic rule compliance testing. The developed approach allows to derive the behavioral specification with respect to traffic rule conformance as an essential part of the functional specification independent of the application domain. It is proven that the approach is able to test the traffic rule conformance of an automated vehicle in different test scenarios within an application domain. By applying the developed methodology, it was possible to identify defects in the investigated test vehicle with respect to rule understanding and compliance

Trajektorienplanung autonomer Fahrzeuge: Diskrete Lösungsmethode für urbane Szenarien

Autonomes Fahren wird die persönliche Mobilität der Zukunft maßgeblich verändern. Doch bis diese Vision Wirklichkeit wird, ist noch einige Forschungs- und Entwicklungsarbeit nötig. Denn gerade die schwierigsten Verkehrsszenarien, welche insbesondere in städtischen Gebieten auftreten, sind noch oft eine Herausforderung. Der Fokus dieser Arbeit liegt auf der Trajektorienplanung, also der Planung des zukünftigen Fahrtweges in Abhängigkeit der Zeit. Diese Planung kann auch als das Kernelement des autonomen Fahrzeugs angesehen werden, da sie alle bisher berechneten Informationen zusammenfügt und daraus die zukünftige Trajektorie bestimmt. Das Planungsergebnis ist außerdem direkt von den Passagieren wahrnehmbar und kann zur Beurteilung des Gesamtsystems herangezogen werden. Somit hängt die Akzeptanz sowie das Vertrauen in das autonome Fahrzeug maßgeblich vom berechneten Planungsergebnis ab. Die Berechnung eines solchen Planungsergebnisses ist allerdings komplex und muss in Echtzeit gelöst werden. In diesem Kontext behandelt diese Dissertation die folgenden Fragen: 1. wie diese rechenintensive Planungsaufgabe vereinfacht werden kann und 2. wie im gesamten Planungsraum effizient eine Trajektorie berechnet werden kann. Hierzu wird zuerst die Wahl des Referenzpunktes, also der Bezugspunkt zwischen einem fahrzeugfesten Koordinatensystem zu einem Weltkoordinatensystem, analysiert. Dieser wird als ideal angenommen, wenn der seitliche Platzbedarf zu beiden Fahrzeugseiten gleich groß ist. Für Kurven konstanter Krümmungen wird analytisch die Idealposition hergeleitet. Nach einer Analyse von Kurven mit variablen Krümmungen empfiehlt der Autor den Referenzpunkt auf oder leicht hinter die Vorderachse zu legen. Die bisher theoretischen Überlegungen werden in einer Kollisionsüberprüfung sowie einer Fahrspurzuordnung in die Praxis übertragen. Für weitere potenzielle Vereinfachungen wird ein Datensatz mit von Menschen gefahrenen Trajektorien analysiert. Dabei wird zuerst untersucht, mit welcher Abtastzeit die Trajektorien durch ein kinematisches Einspurmodell abgebildet werden können, bevor geschwindigkeitsabhängige Transformationen des Lenkwinkels sowie der Lenkwinkelgeschwindigkeit hergeleitet werden. Basierend auf diesen Transformationen wird ein umgebungsunabhängiges Verhaltensmodell präsentiert, welches ein Standardverhalten menschlicher Fahrenden darstellt. In einem nächsten Schritt wird ein neuartiges Planungskonzept, die CarPre-Trajektorienplanung, basierend auf der Monte-Carlo Baumsuche vorgestellt. Durch Verwendung der vorher extrahierten Lenkwinkeltransformation wird der Zustandsraum eines kinematischen Einspurmodells diskretisiert. Die wertediskreten Planungsaktionen, bestehend aus Beschleunigungen sowie Lenkwinkelgeschwindigkeiten, werden in einem Suchbaum zur Berechnung der zukünftigen Trajektorie eingesetzt. Zur Kollisionsüberprüfung sowie Fahrspurzuordnung wird hierbei auf die Referenzpunktüberlegungen zurückgegriffen. Das Konzept wird in einem Spurhaltemanöver sowie einer Annäherung an ein statisches Objekt simulativ verifiziert. Abschließend wird der Planungsalgorithmus im Rahmen des Projektes PRORETA 5 auf einem prototypischen Fahrzeug analysiert. Durch erste Tests wird ein angenehmer Fahrkomfort festgestellt, welcher auf die zukünftige Akzeptanz des echtzeitfähigen Algorithmus schließen lässt. In einer weiteren Untersuchung werden die praktischen Auswirkungen unterschiedlicher Abtastzeiten innerhalb des Planungsalgorithmus ausgewertet. Durch die Wahl höherer Abtastzeiten wird das exponentielle Wachstum des Planungsproblems verlangsamt. Dies ermöglicht z.B. eine Vergrößerung des Planungshorizonts, sodass vorausschauender geplant werden kann. Somit leistet diese Dissertation einen Beitrag für die Trajektorienplanung autonomer Fahrzeuge und ermöglicht einen Schritt weiter in die Richtung der Vision des autonomen Fahrens; einen Schritt weiter in die Richtung der Mobilität der Zukunft

Entwicklung und Evaluierung eines kooperativen Interaktionskonzepts an Entscheidungspunkten für die teilautomatisierte, manöverbasierte Fahrzeugführung

Moderne Fahrerassistenzsysteme ermöglichen einen hohen Standard hinsichtlich Fahrkomfort und Sicherheit. Eine Lösung für die Problematik zunehmender Komplexität durch Kombination mehrerer Einzelsysteme und einen wichtigen Schritt in Richtung Vollautomatisierung bieten teilautomatisierte, kooperative Ansätze wie das manöverbasierte Fahrzeugführungskonzept Conduct-by-Wire. Gegenstand dieser Arbeit ist die Untersuchung der Fragestellung, ob eine kooperative Interaktion zwischen Fahrer und Automation zur Entscheidungsfindung hinsichtlich der Ausführbarkeit von Fahrmanövern im Kontext der teilautomatisierten, manöverbasierten Fahrzeugführung darstellbar ist. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Interaktionskonzept entwickelt, das die Anforderungen des Fahrers und der Automation gleichermaßen berücksichtigt. Zudem erfolgt eine Untersuchung der technischen Realisierbarkeit sowie der Gebrauchstauglichkeit im Rahmen einer Probandenstudie

Information Fusion Methodology for Enhancing Situation Awareness in Connected Cars Environment

This dissertation introduces novel approaches to develop a comprehensive model to address situation awareness in the Internet of Cars, called Attention Assist Framework (AAF). The proposed framework utilizes both Low-Level Data Fusion (LLDF), and High-Level Information Fusion (HLIF) to implement traffic entity, situation, and impact assessment, as well as decision making. The Internet of Cars is the convergence of the Internet of Things and Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs). In fact, VANETs are the communication platforms that make possible the implementation of the Internet of Cars, and has become an integral part of this research field due to its major role to improve vehicle and road safety, traffic efficiency, and convenience as well as comfort to both drivers and passengers. Significant amount of VANETs research work has been focused on specific areas such as safety, routing, broadcasting, Quality of Service (QoS), and security. Among them, road safety issues are deemed one of the most challenging problems of VANETs. Specifically, lack of proper situational awareness of drivers has been shown to be the main cause of road accidents which makes it a major factor in road safety. The traffic entity assessment relies on a LLDF framework that is able to incorporate various multi-sensor data fusion approaches with means of communication links in VANETs. This is used to implement a cooperative localization approach through fusing common data fusion methods, such as Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Unscented Transform (UT), and vehicle-to-vehicle communication in VANETs. Furthermore, traffic situation assessment is based on a fuzzy extension to the Multi-Entity Bayesian Networks (MEBNs), which exploit the expressiveness of first-order logic for semantic relations, and the strength of the Fuzzy Bayesian Networks in handling uncertainty, while tackling the inherent vagueness in the soft data created by human entities. Finally, the impact assessment and decision making is realized through incorporating notions of game theory into Fuzzy-MEBNs, and introducing Active Fuzzy-MEBN (ATFY-MEBN), which is capable in hypothesizing future situations by assessing the impact of the current situation upon taking the actions indicated by an optimal strategy. In fact, such strategies are achieved through solving the games that are generated through a novel situation-specific normal form games generation algorithm that aims to create games based on the given context. In general, ATFY-MEBN presents the concepts of players and actions, and includes new game components, along with a 2-tier architecture, to efficiently model impact assessment and decision making. To demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed framework, a collision warning system simulator is developed, which evaluates the likelihood of a vehicle being in a near-collision situation using a wide variety of both local and global information sources available in the VANETs environment, and suggests an optimal action by assessing the impact of the current situation through generating and solving situation-specific games. Accordingly, first, the entities that highly influence the safety aspect, as well as both their casual and semantic relationships are identified. Next, an ATFY-MEBN-based model is presented, which allows for modeling these entities along with their relationships in specific contexts, assessing the current states of the situations of interest, predicting their future states, and finally suggesting optimal decision. Therefore, if the likelihood of being in a near-collision situation is determined to be high, and if the relevant situation-specific game is generated, then the impact of deciding on different combinations of actions that the game players take are calculated through a pre-fixed payoff function. Finally, the completed game is solved by finding its dominant strategy, that subsequently, results in proposing the optimal action to the driver. Our experimental results are divided into three main sections, through which we evaluate the capabilities of the traffic entity, situation, and impact assessment methods. Accordingly, the performance of the proposed cooperative localization approach is assessed by comparing its results with the ground truth solution and that of the other localization methods in various driving test cases. Moreover, two distinct single-vehicle and multi-vehicles categories of driving scenarios, as well as a novel hybrid MEBN inference, demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed traffic assessment model to efficiently achieve situation and threat assessment on the road. Finally, the impact assessment and decision making models are evaluated through two different scenarios of driving in highway and intersection that are formed with various number of player vehicles, and their actions

Mare Nostrum – Military history and naval power in Rome (2nd century BCE – 1st Century CE)

A investigação da componente marítima e do poder naval no mundo romano têm sido por vezes secundarizados, por oposição à influência da questão terrestre. Esta secundarização faz-se sentir com maior incidência em determinados momentos cronológicos. Apesar de existir um número considerável de estudos que se dedicam às marinhas do período imperial, estes diminuem significativamente quando se pretende observar o período republicano, e a análise da construção do espaço de influência romano, ainda que inclua referências à questão da relação de Roma com o mar, não a coloca com frequência como ponto central de observação. Assim, trabalhos que observem Roma com o mar como ponto central de observação, e estudos que se dediquem à construção do poder naval romano, sobretudo quando observado para cronologias mais recuadas, são ainda escassos, e a área da investigação que pretende observar os primeiros momentos de Roma no mar, bem como os períodos de transição subsequentes, exige ainda maior investimento no estudo do passado. Tendo observado essa lacuna, e no seguimento de investigações anteriores que se dedicaram aos primeiros esforços navais de Roma no século III a. C. (nomeadamente, na Primeira Guerra Púnica, que opõe Roma a Cartago), surge este estudo, que pretende observar a transformação e concretização de Roma enquanto poder marítimo ao longo do século I a. C., salientando-o de um ponto de vista concreto, nomeadamente o da História Militar (como sugere o próprio título, «História Militar e Poder Naval em Roma»). Esta dissertação pretende assim observar o modo como a República Romana cresce e se organiza enquanto potência marítima após as Guerras Púnicas, analisando-a enquanto talassocracia, na sequência da evolução do pensamento naval estratégico enquanto linha condutora das cidades-estado do Mediterrâneo. Para proceder a esta observação, são focados quatro pontos-chave: comando, embarcações, portos e conceitos. O capítulo inicial e o capítulo final, tendo em conta a sua natureza, terão maior foco na análise da fonte histórica, por oposição aos capítulos intermediários, onde a investigação passa, sobretudo, por uma observação de ordem arqueológica e iconográfica. No entanto, o objectivo é, acima de tudo, uma posição integrada: apesar de cada elemento da dissertação ter uma componente que prevalece, derivada das necessidades de investigação para o plano de trabalho proposto, pretende-se uma interligação, sempre que possível, de todos os recursos ao alcance do investigador, confrontando-os e daí retirando observações. A evolução do poder naval de Roma não será somente observada do ponto de vista do seu investimento no Mediterrâneo, mas também da sua intervenção em espaços marítimos que o extravasam, nomeadamente ao longo da costa Atlântica (sobretudo durante campanhas de Gaio Júlio César), mas também em ambientes fluviais, numa tentativa de estabelecer alguns pontos sobre o modo como Roma tira partido dos rios enquanto meios de circulação. Tal é válido não só por via de embarcações, mas também da construção ou destruição de pontes, meios esses que são protegidos e fortificados. Sendo que o século I a. C. coloca os comandantes romanos em contacto com situações diversificadas, em ambientes que são pouco usuais na História de Roma até então, esta investigação pretende apresentar um contributo no sentido de compreender como Roma reage na presença destas circunstâncias, e como é que esta reação se vai traduzir, em termos práticos, nas opções tomadas pelos seus generais e almirantes, quer em termos de combates navais propriamente ditos, quer em termos de utilização do meio aquático como forma de potenciar a deslocação logística de soldados e mantimentos. Neste seguimento, este estudo observa a questão por dois prismas diferentes: por um lado, os conflitos de Roma com adversários externos, como é o caso das Guerras Mitridáticas, das Guerras Gálicas e das duas travessias que Júlio César faz à Grã-Bretanha; por outro, os conflitos internos dentro de Roma, observando a componente naval ao longo das Guerras Civis que irão ocupar a quase-totalidade do primeiro século a. C.: a rivalidade entre Lúcio Cornélio Sula e Gaio Mário, a guerra entre Júlio César e Pompeio, a influência da questão naval nos ataques às regiões costeiras da Península Itálica durante os anos em que Sexto Pompeio domina a ilha da Sicília, e os conflitos do final da República, entre Marco António e Octaviano, que irão terminar em Áccio. Ao longo de toda esta cronologia surgirão frequentes alusões à questão da pirataria, com particular destaque para a questão de Pompeio, o poder que recebe no âmbito do domínio naval, e a forma como desenvolve o combate às amplamente difundidas comunidades de piratas da Cilícia. Observar a convivência de Roma com o mar na sua totalidade, ainda que de um ponto de vista maioritariamente militar, resultaria numa análise excessivamente extensa, o que levou à delimitação de períodos cronológicos que, neste caso, são momentos de transição e, por isso, permitem uma observação de diferentes momentos nesta relação. Em termos cronológicos, será observado o desenvolvimento do investimento no domínio naval por parte de Roma desde as reformas no exército feitas por Gaio Mário, no ano de 107 a. C., até ao ano em que morre Octaviano, 14 d. C., situando assim o principal foco temporal da investigação no século I antes da nossa Era. Tal não significa, no entanto, que não sejam incluídos elementos de períodos anteriores ou posteriores sempre que a ocasião assim o justifique, sobretudo em casos onde existe continuidade: no que respeita a tipologias de embarcações, e tendo em conta a atual escassez de vestígios arqueológicos, aliada à sua dificuldade de preservação, serão incluídos elementos exteriores ao século I a. C., sendo que, em muitas ocasiões, navios de séculos posteriores são o mais próximo que existe em termos arqueológicos daqueles que poderiam ter sido utilizados nas décadas finais da República Romana. As embarcações são observadas no Mediterrâneo, no Atlântico e nos espaços fluviais; e se o ponto de vista proposto se foca na questão da História Militar, tal não significa que não surjam embarcações de transporte, visto que muitas vezes irão ser utilizadas em contextos de guerra; existe também uma breve abordagem à questão da comunicação em meio naval. A mesma abordagem cronológica será verificará na questão dos Portos: neste ponto, pretende-se observar a questão em abrangência, desde os primeiros portos Romanos junto ao rio Tibre até à fundação de coloniae maritimae, bem como a incorporação de portos que, não sendo romanos de origem, são incorporados na esfera de influência romana; consta também uma abordagem particular à questão dos faróis. Estes dois capítulos, de maior incidência na questão material, incluem a observação de elementos arqueológicos, iconográficos e numismáticos, não desvalorizando a importância da fonte escrita, cujo contributo também é apresentado. O capítulo final, relativo aos conceitos, é de certo modo uma reflexão que resulta da investigação apresentada nos três capítulos anteriores, juntamente com a interpretação de duas questões-chave: a ideia de Mare Nostrum e a de Talassocracia. Os contextos percorridos no que diz respeito a comandantes, embarcações e portos permitem contribuir para a interpretação da relação de Roma com o mar, quer de um ponto de vista concreto, quer de um ponto de vista mais simbólico e ideológico. Neste ponto da investigação, iniciar-se-á com uma análise sob o conceito de «Nosso Mar» noutras civilizações, sobretudo no mundo grego, e depois no mundo romano, observando como fontes gregas e latinas irão apresentá-lo, nas suas uniões e subdivisões; o mesmo será realizado no que diz respeito à questão das «Talassocracias». Como referido, o tema central desta investigação é a observação de Roma do ponto de vista do poder marítimo e, como tal, procurar compreender se Roma pode ser considerada enquanto Talassocracia.Uma larga componente deste estudo é a criação de questionário. Tendo em conta que as análises da Marinha Romana do período republicano são ainda pouco abundantes, observando a escassa (mas crescente) disponibilidade de contributos arqueológicos, iconográficos e epigráficos, o avanço da observação desta problemática passa também pela apresentação de perguntas. Pretende-se aqui fornecer um elemento de conectividade entre os vários componentes que nos permitem o estudo do passado, elaborando um estudo concertado, através de um fio condutor, de uma problemática mais vasta, e aliando a diversidade de recursos possível. Este trabalho segue, assim, uma opção metodológica que se foca, acima de tudo, na interdisciplinaridade. Através do questionário à fonte histórica, da análise de fontes da iconografia e da numismática, da interpretação dos dados arqueológicos e, acima de tudo, da ligação, sempre que assim seja possível, entre os dados fornecidos pelas várias áreas, espera-se, ainda mais do que responder às questões colocadas, apresentar um contributo para investigações futuras.This dissertation intends to observe how the Roman Republic organises itself as a maritime power following the Punic Wars, analysing it as a thalassocracy in sequence of the evolution of a strategic naval thought as a conductive line of the Mediterranean city-states. We will observe the evolution of the naval investment from the reformations of Gaius Marius in 107 BCE until the death of Gaius Julius Caesar Octauianus in 14 CE. An observation of the naval command processes is intended, as well as a study of the evolution, construction and typology of vessels and respective functions, analysing the armada and the commercial vessels both in maritime and river contexts. The analysis of the supporting infrastructural network to the navy, namely harbours and shipsheds, will also be included. These problematics will be observed through an interdisciplinary perspective, creating a thorough study of these keywords that allows for the observation of the construction of the Roman influence area from the maritime and river space

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

Integrated Planning and Control for Collision Avoidance Systems

Collision avoidance systems like emergency braking assist systems have demonstrated their effectiveness in increasing the safety of vehicle passengers in various studies. To further increase the effectiveness of collision avoidance systems, the exploitation of the lateral free space by evasive maneuvers is being investigated in this book. This work focuses on methods for integrated trajectory planning and vehicle dynamics control in collision avoidance scenarios by combined evasion and braking

Situation-based Risk Evaluation and Behavior Planning

The presented dissertation addresses the problem of risk evaluation and behavior planning for future intelligent Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). For this purpose, a novel framework for situation-based risk evaluation and behavior planning, targeting highly automated driving, is presented. After properly sensing the current scene, including the current road topology and other traffic participants, the proposed framework first estimates and predicts the future behavior of all involved entities comprising a situation classification and trajectory prediction step. This is then followed by the generation of the own future behavior in a behavior planning step which is based on an evaluation of possible ego behavior alternatives in terms of risk and utility considerations. The future behavior is planned in a way to find a tradeoff between the expected future risk and utility. Inner-city traffic scenarios in particular are usually complex and of high uncertainty, considering measurements as well as behavioral decisions. To reduce the complexity, similar behavior alternatives are clustered and represented by prototypical behavior patterns using so-called situations. A novel situation classification approach is proposed to estimate how good a situation matches with the actual behaviors. This approach is based on a comparison of the prototypically predicted trajectories of the considered situations with the actual measured trajectories. For this purpose a novel measure for spatio-temporal trajectory similarity, based on the evaluation of longitudinal and lateral spatio-temporal distance, is derived. The situation classification system is used to detect incorrect and critical traffic behaviors, especially in scenarios with a disregard of right-of-way. Evaluating the system using real-world crash cases reveals that it is able to warn the driver reliably of an upcoming crash, with sufficient time to initiate a suitable evasive behavior. For the prediction of situation-dependent prototypical scene evolution patterns, the interaction-aware Foresighted Driver Model (FDM) is applied in a forward simulation of a sensed scene under different situation-dependent behavioral assumptions. The proposed FDM is a novel, time continuous driver model for the simulation and prediction of freeway and urban traffic. Based on the general risk evaluation and behavior planning framework developed in this thesis, the driver model equations are introduced from the assumption that a driver tries to balance predictive risk (e.g. due to possible collisions along its route) with utility (e.g. the time required to travel, smoothness of ride, etc.). For this purpose, a computationally inexpensive, approximate risk model targeting only risk maxima and a gradient descent-based behavior generation is applied. It is shown, how such a model can be used to simulate and predict driving behavior with a similar performance compared to full behavior planning models. The FDM is applicable to a wide range of different scenarios, e.g. intersection or highway-accessing scenarios, with the consideration of an arbitrary number of traffic entities. Thus, the FDM generalizes and reaches beyond state-of-the-art driver models. Complex traffic situations require the estimation of future behavior alternatives in terms of predictive risks. Risk assessment has to be driven from the knowledge that the acting scene entity requires to evaluate the own future behavior. Based on the predicted future dynamics of traffic scene entities, an approach is presented, where a continuous, probabilistic model for future risk is used to build so-called predictive risk maps. These maps indicate how risky a certain ego behavior will be at different future times, so that they can be used to directly plan the best possible future behavior. The behavior in complex scenarios differs strongly, depending on the actually occurring situation. However, sensory measurements of the ego- and other involved entities' states as well as the prediction of possible future states are generally of high uncertainty. As a consequence, the current driving situation can only be approximated. Additionally, a situation can change very quickly, e.g. if a traffic participant suddenly changes its behavior. In this thesis an approach is proposed, how to plan a safe, but still efficient future behavior under consideration of multiple possible situations with different occurrence probabilities. In several traffic scenarios comprising simulated as well as recorded real-world data, it is shown that the approach generates an efficient behavior for situations which are likely to occur, while generating a plan B to safely deal with improbable but risky situations

Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi

• Adagiorum chilias IV, centuriae VI-X; chilias V, centuriae I-II. [Adagia 3501-4151

Planung kooperativer Fahrmanöver für kognitive Automobile

Fahrerassistenzsysteme eröffnen die Möglichkeit für automatische Eingriffe in Gefahrensituationen und bieten dadurch ein Potenzial zur Unfallvermeidung und zur Minimierung der Unfallschwere im Straßenverkehr. Die Handlungen mehrerer kognitiver Fahrzeuge können über Funkkommunikation miteinander koordiniert werden. Diese Dissertation untersucht potenziell echtzeitfähige Bewegungsplanungsalgorithmen zur Planung von Fahrmanövern, die von mehreren Fahrzeugen kooperativ ausgeführt werden können