Automatic lateral control for unmanned vehicles via genetic algorithms

It is known that the techniques under the topic of Soft Computing have a strong capability of learning and cognition, as well as a good tolerance to uncertainty and imprecision. Due to these properties they can be applied successfully to Intelligent Vehicle Systems; ITS is a broad range of technologies and techniques that hold answers to many transportation problems. The unmannedcontrol of the steering wheel of a vehicle is one of the most important challenges facing researchers in this area. This paper presents a method to adjust automatically a fuzzy controller to manage the steering wheel of a mass-produced vehicle; to reach it, information about the car state while a human driver is handling the car is taken and used to adjust, via iterative geneticalgorithms an appropriated fuzzy controller. To evaluate the obtained controllers, it will be considered the performance obtained in the track following task, as well as the smoothness of the driving carried out

Low Speed Longitudinal Control Algorithms for Automated Vehicles in Simulation and Real Platforms

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) acting over throttle and brake are already available in level 2 automated vehicles. In order to increase the level of automation new systems need to be tested in an extensive set of complex scenarios, ensuring safety under all circumstances. Validation of these systems using real vehicles presents important drawbacks: the time needed to drive millions of kilometers, the risk associated with some situations, and the high cost involved. Simulation platforms emerge as a feasible solution.Therefore, robust and reliable virtual environments to test automated driving maneuvers and control techniques are needed. In that sense, this paper presents a use case where three longitudinal low speed control techniques are designed, tuned, and validated using an in-house simulation framework and later applied in a real vehicle. Control algorithms include a classical PID, an adaptive network fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), and a Model Predictive Control (MPC). The simulated dynamics are calculated using a multibody vehicle model. In addition, longitudinal actuators of a Renault Twizy are characterized through empirical tests. A comparative analysis of results between simulated and real platform shows the effectiveness of the proposed framework for designing and validating longitudinal controllers for real automated vehicles.Te authors would like to acknowledge the ESCEL Project ENABLE-S3 (with Grant no. 692455-2) for the support in the development of this work

Autonomous car fuzzy control modeled by iterative genetic algorithms

International audienceThe techniques of Soft Computing are recognized as having a strong learning and cognition capability as well as good tolerance to uncertainty and imprecision. These properties allow them to be applied successfully to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), a broad range of diverse technologies that designed to answer many transportation problems. The unmanned control of the steering wheel is one of the most important challenges faced by researchers in this area. This paper presents a method of automatically adjusting a fuzzy controller to manage the steering wheel of a mass-produced vehicle. Information about the state of the car while a human driver is handling it is captured and used to search, via genetic algorithms, for the best fit of an appropriate fuzzy controller. Evaluation of the fuzzy controller will take into account its adjustment to the human driver's actions and the absence of abrupt changes in its control surface, so that not only is the route tracking good, but the drive is smooth and comfortable for the vehicle's occupants

A multiple-goal reinforcement learning method for complex vehicle overtaking maneuvers

In this paper, we present a learning method to solve the vehicle overtaking problem, which demands a multitude of abilities from the agent to tackle multiple criteria. To handle this problem, we propose to adopt a multiple-goal reinforcement learning (MGRL) framework as the basis of our solution. By considering seven different goals, either Q-learning (QL) or double-action QL is employed to determine action decisions based on whether the other vehicles interact with the agent for that particular goal. Furthermore, a fusion function is proposed according to the importance of each goal before arriving to an overall but consistent action decision. This offers a powerful approach for dealing with demanding situations such as overtaking, particularly when a number of other vehicles are within the proximity of the agent and are traveling at different and varying speeds. A large number of overtaking cases have been simulated to demonstrate its effectiveness. From the results, it can be concluded that the proposed method is capable of the following: 1) making correct action decisions for overtaking; 2) avoiding collisions with other vehicles; 3) reaching the target at reasonable time; 4) keeping almost steady speed; and 5) maintaining almost steady heading angle. In addition, it should also be noted that the proposed method performs lane keeping well when not overtaking and lane changing effectively when overtaking is in progress. © 2006 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Integration of motion planning and model-predictive-control-based control system for autonomous electric vehicles

This paper introduces the development of an autonomous driving system in autonomous electric vehicles, which consists of a simplified motion-planning program and a Model-Predictive-Control-Based (MPC-based) control system. The motion-planning system is based on polynomial parameterization, which computes a path toward the expected longitudinal and lateral positions within required time interval in real scenarios. Then the MPC-based control system cooperates the front steering and individual wheel torques to track the planned trajectories, while fulfilling the physical constraints of actuators. The proposed system is evaluated through simulation, using a seven-degrees-offreedom vehicle model with a ‘magic formula’ tire model. The simulations and validation through CarSim show that the proposed planner algorithm and controller are feasible and can achieve requirements of autonomous driving in normal scenarios