Project

Validation of optimal motion planning for automated urban driving

Period
1 February–31 August 2019
Project manager
Zlatan Ajanovic

Project A-0035 within SAFER's Open Research at AstaZero Program.

The goal of this project is to validate the motion planning framework for automated urban driving in a real vehicle. The framework is based on Search-based optimal motion planning (SBOMP) with a goal to achieve energy efficient driving in urban and rural environments, tested in various scenarios (i.e. with the presence of other traffic participants, traffic lights and other constraints). An additional goal is to show that using cost function representing energy consumption can provide reasonable metrics for motion lanning in urban environments.

It is expected to show that proposed Search-based optimal motion planning (SBOMP) framework can provide driveable and energy efficient driving trajectories. It is also expected to show significant energy saving compared to the human driver and stop-free drive even in very challenging situations (such as shown in this video: https://youtu.be/D5XJ5ncSuqQ). Positive results will argue the applicability of the proposed method for achieving super-human driving performance in various realistic driving scenarios.

Several scenarios are planned to highlight potential savings of automated driving compared to human drivers. First, the human driving baseline is obtained from tests in a driving simulator in the same scenarios. Then, the recorded representative human driving trajectory is reproduced on a real vehicle with simulated traffic and compared to a result of the automated system. This approach enables repeatable reproduction of complex scenarios involving multiple agents. Driving simulator tests are obtained in Austria, Graz and real driving test in Sweden, AstraZero track.

Dissemination activities:

  • Deep Learning Graz - Talk, ”Planning and Learning in Automated Driving”, Meetup, 16 June 2020. Graz, AT.
  • BH Futures Foundation - Webinar Talk, ”Towards SuperHuman Autonomous Vehicles”, 4. Feb. 2020.
  • IEEE Young Professionals Bosnia and Herzegovina - Talk, Tech Mythbusters - ”Autonomous cars will kill the joy of driving”, 01. Dec. 2020.

Short facts

Research area
Systems for accident prevention and AD
Financier(s)
Open Research at AstaZero Program (RISE, Chalmers)
Partners
Virtual Vehicle Research Center
Volvo Cars
Project type
Open research