Human-vehicle dynamic model with driver’s neuromuscular characteristic for shared control of autonomous vehicle

Author(s):  
Wei Hanbing ◽  
Wu Yanhong ◽  
Chen Xing ◽  
Xu Jin ◽  
Rahul Sharma

Over a long period of time, the fully autonomous vehicle is far from commercial application. The concept of ‘human-vehicle shared control (HVSC)’ provides a promising solution to enhance autonomous driving safety. In order to characterize the evolution of the driver’s feature in the process of HVSC, a dynamics model of HVSC with the driver’s neuromuscular characteristic is proposed in this paper. It takes into account the driver’s neuromuscular characteristics, such as stretch reflection, feedback stiffness, etc. By designing a model predictive control (MPC) controller, the feedback of the vehicle’s state and steering torque is constructed. For validation of the model, driving simulation has been conducted in our table-based driving simulator. The vehicle state and the surface electromyography of the driver’s arm working muscle group are collected simultaneously. Subsequently, the hierarchical least square (HLS) parameter identification and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) observer is used to identify and estimate the important characteristic parameters respectively based on the experimental results. The comparisons show that the HVSC can characterize the vehicle’s dynamic state and the driver’s personalized characteristic can be identified by HLS. This paper will serve as a theoretical basis of control strategy allocation between the human and vehicle during shared control for L3 class autonomous vehicle.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 2626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanbing Wei ◽  
Yanhong Wu ◽  
Xing Chen ◽  
Jin Xu

For investigating driver characteristic as well as control authority allocation during the process of human–vehicle shared control (HVSC) for an autonomous vehicle (AV), a HVSC dynamic mode with a driver’s neuromuscular (NMS) state parameters was proposed in this paper. It takes into account the driver’s NMS characteristics such as stretch reflection and reflex stiffness. By designing a model predictive control (MPC) controller, the vehicle’s state feedback and driver’s state are incorporated to construct the HVSC dynamic model. For the validation of the model, a field experiment was conducted. The vehicle state signals are collected by V-BOX, and the driver’s state signals are obtained with the electromyography instrument. Subsequently, the hierarchical least square (HLS) parameter identification algorithm was implemented to identify the parameters of the model based on the experimental results. Moreover, the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) was utilized to estimate the important NMS parameters which cannot be measured directly. The experimental results showed that the model we proposed has excellent accuracy in characterizing the vehicle’s dynamic state and estimating the driver’s NMS parameter. This paper will serve as a theoretical basis for the new control strategy allocation between human and vehicle for L3 class AVs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weilong Song ◽  
Guangming Xiong ◽  
Huiyan Chen

Autonomous vehicles need to perform social accepted behaviors in complex urban scenarios including human-driven vehicles with uncertain intentions. This leads to many difficult decision-making problems, such as deciding a lane change maneuver and generating policies to pass through intersections. In this paper, we propose an intention-aware decision-making algorithm to solve this challenging problem in an uncontrolled intersection scenario. In order to consider uncertain intentions, we first develop a continuous hidden Markov model to predict both the high-level motion intention (e.g., turn right, turn left, and go straight) and the low level interaction intentions (e.g., yield status for related vehicles). Then a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) is built to model the general decision-making framework. Due to the difficulty in solving POMDP, we use proper assumptions and approximations to simplify this problem. A human-like policy generation mechanism is used to generate the possible candidates. Human-driven vehicles’ future motion model is proposed to be applied in state transition process and the intention is updated during each prediction time step. The reward function, which considers the driving safety, traffic laws, time efficiency, and so forth, is designed to calculate the optimal policy. Finally, our method is evaluated in simulation with PreScan software and a driving simulator. The experiments show that our method could lead autonomous vehicle to pass through uncontrolled intersections safely and efficiently.


Author(s):  
Yuan Shi ◽  
Wenhui Huang ◽  
Federico Cheli ◽  
Monica Bordegoni ◽  
Giandomenico Caruso

Abstract A bursting number of achievements in the autonomous vehicle industry have been obtained during the past decades. Various systems have been developed to make automated driving possible. Due to the algorithm used in the autonomous vehicle system, the performance of the vehicle differs from one to another. However, very few studies have given insight into the influence caused by implementing different algorithms from a human factors point of view. Two systems based on two algorithms with different characteristics are utilized to generate the two driving styles of the autonomous vehicle, which are implemented into a driving simulator in order to create the autonomous driving experience. User’s skin conductance (SC) data, which enables the evaluation of user’s cognitive workload and mental stress were recorded and analyzed. Subjective measures were applied by filling out Swedish occupational fatigue inventory (SOFI-20) to get a user self-reporting perspective view of their behavior changes along with the experiments. The results showed that human’s states were affected by the driving styles of different autonomous systems, especially in the period of speed variation. By analyzing users’ self-assessment data, a correlation was observed between the user “Sleepiness” and the driving style of the autonomous vehicle. These results would be meaningful for the future development of the autonomous vehicle systems, in terms of balancing the performance of the vehicle and user’s experience.


Author(s):  
Kristin Mühl ◽  
Christoph Strauch ◽  
Christoph Grabmaier ◽  
Susanne Reithinger ◽  
Anke Huckauf ◽  
...  

Objective We investigated passenger’s trust and preferences using subjective, qualitative, and psychophysiological measures while being driven either by human or automation in a field study and a driving simulator experiment. Background The passenger’s perspective has largely been neglected in autonomous driving research, although the change of roles from an active driver to a passive passenger is incontrovertible. Investigations of passenger’s appraisals on self-driving vehicles often seem convoluted with active manual driving experiences instead of comparisons with being driven by humans. Method We conducted an exploratory field study using an autonomous research vehicle ( N = 11) and a follow-up experimental driving simulation ( N = 24). Participants were driven on the same course by a human and an autonomous agent sitting on a passenger seat. Skin conductance, trust, and qualitative characteristics of the perceived driving situation were assessed. In addition, the effect of driving style (defensive vs. sporty) was evaluated in the simulator. Results Both investigations revealed a close relation between subjective trust ratings and skin conductance, with increased trust and by trend reduced arousal for human compared with automation in control. Even though driving behavior was equivalent in the simulator when being driven by human and automation, passengers most preferred and trusted the human-defensive driver. Conclusion Individual preferences for driving style and human or autonomous vehicle control influence trust and subjective driving characterizations. Application The findings are applicable in human-automation research, reminding to not neglect subjective attributions and psychophysiological reactions as a result of ascribed control duties in relation to specific execution characteristics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ze Liu ◽  
Yingfeng Cai ◽  
Hai Wang ◽  
Long Chen

AbstractRadar and LiDAR are two environmental sensors commonly used in autonomous vehicles, Lidars are accurate in determining objects’ positions but significantly less accurate as Radars on measuring their velocities. However, Radars relative to Lidars are more accurate on measuring objects velocities but less accurate on determining their positions as they have a lower spatial resolution. In order to compensate for the low detection accuracy, incomplete target attributes and poor environmental adaptability of single sensors such as Radar and LiDAR, in this paper, an effective method for high-precision detection and tracking of surrounding targets of autonomous vehicles. By employing the Unscented Kalman Filter, Radar and LiDAR information is effectively fused to achieve high-precision detection of the position and speed information of targets around the autonomous vehicle. Finally, the real vehicle test under various driving environment scenarios is carried out. The experimental results show that the proposed sensor fusion method can effectively detect and track the vehicle peripheral targets with high accuracy. Compared with a single sensor, it has obvious advantages and can improve the intelligence level of autonomous cars.


Author(s):  
Wenhui Huang ◽  
Francesco Braghin ◽  
Stefano Arrigoni

Abstract Autonomous driving has became one of the most hot trends in artificial intelligence area in recent years thanks to the machine learning algorithms. However, most of the autonomous driving studies are still limited to discrete action space. In this study, we propose to implement Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient algorithm for learning driving behavior over the continuous actions. For this purpose, a driving simulator is employed which interfaces with IPG CarMker software where the virtual environment and dynamical vehicle model can be built. “Human-in-the-loop” is performed in order to gather the data and a neural network which is implemented in Behavior Layer is trained to recognize two different scenarios-forward driving and stop. Based on the scenario the agent is dealing with, the actions are learnt and suggested from the DDPG algorithm. The experimental results show that DDPG algorithm is able to learn the optimal policy with continuous actions reliably for both scenarios.


Author(s):  
Jinmo Lee ◽  
Neska Elhaouij ◽  
Rosalind Picard

To promote calm breathing inside a car, we designed a just-in-time breathing intervention stimulated by multi-sensory feedback and evaluated its efficacy in a driving simulator. Efficacy was measured via reduction in breathing rate as well as by user acceptance and driving safety measures. Drivers were first exposed to demonstrations of three kinds of ambient feedback designed to stimulate a goal breathing rate: (1) auditory (rhythmic background noise), (2) synchronized modulation of wind (dashboard fans modulating air pointed toward the driver) together with auditory, or (3) synchronized visual (ambient lights) together with auditory. After choosing one preference from these three, each driver engaged in a challenging driving task in a car simulator, where the ambient stimulation was triggered when their breathing exceeded a goal rate adapted to their personal baseline. Two user studies were conducted in a car simulator involving respectively 23 and 31 participants. The studies include both manual and autonomous driving scenarios to evaluate drivers' engagement in the intervention under different cognitive loads. The most frequently selected stimulation was the combined auditory and wind modalities. Measures of changes in breathing rate show that the participants were able to successfully engage in the breathing intervention; however, several factors from the driving context appear to have an impact on when the intervention is or is not effective.


Webology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (05) ◽  
pp. 1176-1183
Author(s):  
Thylashri S ◽  
Manikandaprabu N ◽  
Jayakumar T ◽  
Vijayachitra S ◽  
Kiruthiga G

Pedestrians are essential objects in computer vision. Pedestrian detection in images or videos plays an important role in many applications such as real-time monitoring, counting pedestrians at various events, detecting falls of the elderly, etc. It is formulated as a problem of the automatic identification and location of pedestrians in pictures or videos. In real images, the art of pedestrian detection is an important task for major applications such as video surveillance, autonomous driving systems, etc. Pedestrian detection is also an important feature of the autonomous vehicle driving system because it identifies pedestrians and minimizes accidents between vehicles and pedestrians. The research trend in the field of vehicle electronics and driving safety, vision-based pedestrian recognition technologies for smart vehicles have established themselves loudly or slowing down the vehicle. In general, the visual pedestrian detection progression capable of be busted down into three consecutive steps: pedestrian detection, pedestrian recognition, and pedestrian tracking. There is also visual pedestrian recognition in the vehicle. Finally, we study the challenges and evolution of research in the future.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lishengsa Yue ◽  
Mohamed Abdel-Aty ◽  
Zijin Wang

Purpose This study aims to evaluate the influence of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) merging algorithms on the driver behavior of human-driven vehicles on the mainline. Design/methodology/approach Previous studies designed their merging algorithms mostly based on either the simulation or the restricted field testing, which lacks consideration of realistic driving behaviors in the merging scenario. This study developed a multi-driver simulator system to embed realistic driving behavior in the validation of merging algorithms. Findings Four types of CAV merging algorithms were evaluated regarding their influences on driving safety and driving comfort of the mainline vehicle platoon. The results revealed significant variation of the algorithm influences. Specifically, the results show that the reference-trajectory-based merging algorithm may outperform the social-psychology-based merging algorithm which only considers the ramp vehicles. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time to evaluate a CAV control algorithm considering realistic driver interactions rather than by the simulation. To achieve the research purpose, a novel multi-driver driving simulator was developed, which enables multi-drivers to simultaneously interact with each other during a virtual driving test. The results are expected to have practical implications for further improvement of the CAV merging algorithm.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ze Liu ◽  
Feng Ying Cai

Abstract Radar and Lidar are two environmental sensors commonly used in autonomous vehicles,Lidars are accurate in determining objects’ positions but significantly less accurate on measuring their velocities. However, Radars are more accurate on measuring objects velocities but less accurate on determining their positions as they have a lower spatial resolution. In order to compensate for the low detection accuracy, incomplete target attributes and poor environmental adaptability of single sensors such as Radar and LIDAR, we proposed an effective method for high-precision detection and tracking of surrounding targets of autonomous vehicles. By employing the Unscented Kalman Filter, radar and LIDAR information is effectively fused to achieve high-precision detection of the position and speed information of targets around the autonomous vehicle. Finally, we do a variety of driving environment under the real car algorithm verification test. The experimental results show that the proposed sensor fusion method can effectively detect and track the vehicle peripheral targets with high accuracy. Compared with a single sensor, it has obvious advantages and can improve the intelligence level of driverless cars.


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