Safety-oriented automated vehicle longitudinal control considering both stability and damping behavior

Extensive research has examined the potential benefits of Automated Vehicles (AVs) for increasing traffic capacity and improving safety. However, previous studies on AV longitudinal control have focused primarily on control stability and instability or tradeoffs between safety and stability, neglecting the importance of vehicle damping characteristics. This study aims to demonstrate the significance of explicitly considering safety in addition to stability in AV longitudinal control through damping behavior analysis. Specifically, it proposes a safety-oriented AV longitudinal control and provides recommendations on the control parameters. For the proposed AV control, an Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) model is integrated with damping behavior analysis to model AV safety under continuous traffic perturbations. Numerical simulations are conducted to quantify the relationship between mobility and safety for AVs considering both damping behavior and control stability. Different ACC control parameters are evaluated in terms of damping and stability properties, and their safety impacts are assessed based on various surrogate safety measures such as Deceleration Rate to Avoid Crash (DRAC), Crash Potential Index (CPI) and Time-Integrated Time-to-collision (TIT). The results indicate that an underdamped state (ACC damping ratio < 1) is less safe than the critically damped state (ACC damping ratio = 1) and the overdamped state (ACC damping ratio > 1). Furthermore, given the same AV car-following time lag, ACC with a damping ratio between 1 and 1.2 provides better safety performance. Increasing the AV car-following time lag can improve both safety and stability when the remaining ACC control parameters are kept the same. In this case, the optimal safety-oriented ACC regions also increase. The findings of this study provide important insights into designing safe and stable AV longitudinal control algorithms.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2024.107486
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457524000319
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00014575
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Dai, Yulu
  • 0000-0003-0945-9742
  • Wang, Chen
  • Xie, Yuanchang
  • 0000-0002-0139-9362
• Publication Date: 2024-4

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: 107486
• Serial:
  • Accident Analysis & Prevention
  • Volume: 198
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0001-4575
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00014575

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Autonomous vehicles; Damping (Engineering); Longitudinal control; Mathematical models; Surrogate safety measures; Vehicle safety
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01909747
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 26 2024 8:51AM