Analyses of Vision-based Lateral Control for Automated Highway System

SUMMARY

The stability and performance of a vision-based vehicle lateral control system are analyzed. Effects of look-ahead distance, vision delay, and vehicle speed on the performance of vision feedback control system are examined by using frequency domain and time domain methods. A measurement model of the vision system is derived from the point of view of multiple sensors. The quantization error of the vision system is analyzed and the way of extracting essential information for control is studied. Based on this analysis, some guidelines for the design of vision-based controllers are proposed. A design example is further illustrated for a vision system with a substantial time delay.     

Design and Evaluation of Robust Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control Systems in Parameter Space

This paper is on the design of cooperative adaptive cruise control systems for automated driving of platoons of vehicles in the longitudinal direction. Longitudinal models of vehicles with simple dynamics, an uncertain first order time constant and vehicle to vehicle communication with a communication delay are used in the vehicle modeling. A robust parameter space approach is developed and applied to the design of the cooperative adaptive cruise control system. D-stability is chosen as the robust performance goal and the feedback PD controller is designed in controller parameter space to achieve this D-stability goal for a range of possible longitudinal dynamics time constants and different values of time gap. Preceding vehicle acceleration is sent to the ego vehicle using vehicle to vehicle communication and a feedforward controller is used in this inter-vehicle loop to improve performance. Simulation results of an eight vehicle platoon of heterogeneous vehicles are presented and evaluated to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design method. Also, the proposed method is compared with a benchmark controller and the feedback only controller. Time gap regulation and string stability are used to assess performance and the effect of the vehicle to vehicle communication frequency on control system performance is also investigated.     

Vehicle detection system design based on stereo vision sensors

Vehicle detection is a crucial issue for driver assistance system as well as for autonomous vehicle guidance function and it has to be performed with high reliability to avoid any potential collision. The vision-based vehicle detection systems are regarded promising for this purpose because they require little infrastructure on a highway. However, the feasibility of these systems in passenger car requires accurate and robust sensing performance. In this paper, a vehicle detection system using stereo vision sensors is developed. This system utilizes feature extraction, epipoplar constraint and feature matching in order to robustly detect the initial corresponding pairs. The proposed system can detect a leading vehicle in front and can estimate its position parameters such as the distance and heading angle. After the initial detection, the system executes the tracking algorithm for the vehicles in the lane. The proposed vehicle detection system is implemented on a passenger car and its performances are verified experimentally.     

An adaptive fuzzy-sliding lateral control strategy of automated vehicles based on vision navigation

Lateral control is considered to be one of the toughest challenges in the development of automated vehicles due to their features of nonlinearities, parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. In order to overcome these difficulties, an adaptive fuzzy-sliding mode control strategy used for lateral control of vision-based automated vehicles is proposed in this paper. First, a vision algorithm is designed to provide accurate location information of vehicle relative to reference path. Then, an adaptive fuzzy-sliding mode lateral controller is proposed to counteract parametric uncertainties and strong nonlinearities, and the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop lateral control system is proven by the Lyapunov theory. Finally, experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm can achieve favourable tracking performance, and it has strong robustness.     

Robust control and actuator dynamics compensation for railway vehicles

A robust controller is designed for active steering of a high speed train bogie with solid axle wheel sets to reduce track irregularity effects on the vehicle’s dynamics and improve stability and curving performance. A half-car railway vehicle model with seven degrees of freedom equipped with practical accelerometers and angular velocity sensors is considered for the H_∞ control design. The controller is robust against the wheel/rail contact parameter variations. Field measurement data are used as the track irregularities in simulations. The control force is applied to the vehicle model via ball-screw electromechanical actuators. To compensate the actuator dynamics, the time delay is identified online and is used in a second-order polynomial extrapolation carried out to predict and modify the control command to the actuator. The performance of the proposed controller and actuator dynamics compensation technique are examined on a one-car railway vehicle model with realistic structural parameters and nonlinear wheel and rail profiles. The results showed that for the case of nonlinear wheel and rail profiles significant improvements in the active control performance can be achieved using the proposed compensation technique.     

基于视频的交通事件自动检测技术综述

首先从基于视频的交通事件自动检测技术所涉及的目标提取、车辆跟踪和行为理解等3个步骤中，详细地介绍和比较国际上常用的各种检测算法；其次，从背景建模和车辆阴影两个方面分析了检测算法中存在的技术难点和可能的解决方案；同时，从平均检测时间、检测率和误报率3个方面介绍该技术算法性能的评价方法。最后总结了基于视频的交通事件自动检测的相关技术，展望了该技术的发展前景。     

Measurement of roof deformation caused by vehicle rollover

A vehicle rollover is a critical accident that could have many causes. This paper describes a novel vision-based system for measuring vehicle roof deformation due to a rollover accident. A vision-based measurement system offers an overall view of structural deformation simply at low cost. Our measurement system was constructed using a Kinect camera from Microsoft, a battery, and a remote-controlled recording computer. Color images and distance maps can be obtained using two sensors embedded in the Kinect along with customized software, and the distance from the camera lens to a specific object can be calculated with a simple equation. To test our proposed approach, actual vehicle rollover experiments were conducted and the resulting roof deformations were compared to those indicated by our system. Moreover, cross-sectional image of Apillar was analyzed to calculate bending moment of inertia. From the research results, it was able to show that deformation errors were within 13 mm, and roof deformation was correlated with vehicle type, or vehicle curb weight.     

基于视觉导航的自动引导车设计

介绍了自行设计的视觉导航AGV,它综合应用了图像处理、单片机控制、数据通信等相关理论。视觉导航AGV的设计包括软件、硬件两部分内容。软件设计包括图像处理、电机控制、数据通信等内容。图像处理部分用VC编写,电机控制程序用单片机C语言编写。硬件设计包括控制系统硬件组成,电机驱动控制电路设计。     

Effects of field of view on lateral control performance in a vision-based autonomous vehicle

This paper addresses the effects of field of view on lateral control performance in a vision-based autonomous vehicle with simulation studies. When a vehicle drives around a circle with the lateral control algorithm proposed here, the performance is evaluated for a tracking error and ride quality for locations and sizes of the field of view. The results show that a field of view covering from 10 to 30 m in front of a vehicle is the optimal with respect to both the error and the ride quality, and it is independent of the vehicle speed.     

通信时延与丢包下智能网联汽车控制性能分析

网联协同控制是智能网联汽车的重要应用场景，而车联网的通信时延与丢包可能导致控制性能下降，甚至影响行车安全。为了分析时延与丢包对网联车辆控制的稳态与瞬态性能的影响，设计了网联控制器，并开展了仿真与实车试验。基于车辆动力学特性，将通信时延与丢包下的网联车辆控制分解为纵向控制与横向控制，进行了统一建模，并设计了控制器进行试验分析；搭建了网联自动驾驶的CarSim-Simulink联合仿真平台，及集成可模拟时延与丢包的LTE-V原理样机的智能网联汽车试验平台；开展了不同时延与丢包率下网联跟车控制与网联路径跟踪控制的仿真试验与实车试验。试验结果显示：时延与丢包对控制误差的影响形态有相似性；时延或丢包率取系统及工况参数有关的小值时，如试验中时延小于200 ms或丢包率小于20%，工况随机因素对控制误差的影响可能超过时延与丢包的影响；在更大的时延或丢包率下，时延与丢包的出现方式（如出现时机等）对控制误差影响更大。研究结果表明：能实现针对网联车辆控制系统通信特性的控制器优化设计，使得当时延与丢包在工况相关阈值内时，系统控制误差有界。所揭露的规律一方面可用于对造成危险控制误差的时延与丢包工况进行预警，另一方面也可用于基于给定的稳态或瞬态控制误差边界，判定对应工况允许的时延与丢包率边界。     

Self-tuning control algorithm design for vehicle adaptive cruise control system through real-time estimation of vehicle parameters and road grade

The main purpose of this paper is to design a self-tuning control algorithm for an adaptive cruise control (ACC) system that can adapt its behaviour to variations of vehicle dynamics and uncertain road grade. To this aim, short-time linear quadratic form (STLQF) estimation technique is developed so as to track simultaneously the trend of the time-varying parameters of vehicle longitudinal dynamics with a small delay. These parameters are vehicle mass, road grade and aerodynamic drag-area coefficient. Next, the values of estimated parameters are used to tune the throttle and brake control inputs and to regulate the throttle/brake switching logic that governs the throttle and brake switching. The performance of the designed STLQF-based self-tuning control (STLQF-STC) algorithm for ACC system is compared with the conventional method based on fixed control structure regarding the speed/distance tracking control modes. Simulation results show that the proposed control algorithm improves the performance of throttle and brake controllers, providing more comfort while travelling, enhancing driving safety and giving a satisfactory performance in the presence of different payloads and road grade variations.     

Real-time vision-based blind spot warning system: Experiments with motorcycles in daytime/nighttime conditions

This paper describes a real-time vision-based blind spot warning system that has been specially designed for motorcycles detection in both daytime and nighttime conditions. Motorcycles are fast moving and small vehicles that frequently remain unseen to other drivers, mainly in the blind-spot area. In fact, although in recent years the number of fatal accidents has decreased overall, motorcycle accidents have increased by 20%. The risks are primarily linked to the inner characteristics of this mode of travel: motorcycles are fast moving vehicles, light, unstable and fragile. These features make the motorcycle detection problem a difficult but challenging task to be solved from the computer vision point of view. In this paper we present a daytime and nighttime vision-based motorcycle and car detection system in the blind spot area using a single camera installed on the side mirror. On the one hand, daytime vehicle detection is carried out using optical flow features and Support Vector Machine-based (SVM) classification. On the other hand, nighttime vehicle detection is based on head lights detection. The proposed system warns the driver about the presence of vehicles in the blind area, including information about the position and the type of vehicle. Extensive experiments have been carried out in 172 minutes of sequences recorded in real traffic scenarios in both daytime and nighttime conditions, in the context of the Valencia MotoGP Grand Prix 2009.     

汽车虚拟视野体验系统研究

面向汽车造型设计阶段,介绍了采用虚拟现实技术的汽车视野评价和主观体验系统.分析了虚拟视野系统软硬件组成和关键算法,通过虚拟视野与实车视野体验结果的分析与对比,对使用位置跟踪器和视线跟踪器模拟真实感驾驶员视野的可行性进行了研究.结果表明,使用虚拟现实技术对汽车视野进行主观体验是可行的,使用该系统可以大大节省样车阶段的实车试验时间和资金投入,同时提高了设计质量.     

CNG/汽油双燃料汽车燃气ECU的设计

介绍所设计的双燃料汽车燃气电控模块的组成、原理及设计过程,将该电控模块与原车的ECU和氧传感器一起构成闭环控制系统,可实现对燃气喷气量的精确控制。通过利用原车ECU的控制策略,可缩短开发周期,节约开发成本。通过试验验证了所设计的燃气ECU的控制性能。     

Level and attitude control of the active suspension system with integral and derivative action

A 7-DOF full-car model with optimal active control suspension is utilized to evaluate the vehicle dynamic performances which are achieved through proposed controllers. The optimal controller, which includes the integral action for the suspension deflection, considerably improves the attitude control of a vehicle because the rolling and pitching motion in cornering and braking maneuvers are reduced, respectively. In the viewpoint of level control, the integral control acting on the suspension deflection results in the zero steady-state deflection in response to static body forces and ramp road input. The dynamic characteristics of the suspension control system are evaluated in terms of time domain and frequency domain. The simulations in the time domain demonstrate the advantages of the active suspension system obtained by penalizing the integral and derivative of suspension deflections and the derivative of roll and pitch angles in the performance index. The frequency characteristic curves obtained by simulations regarding integral action or derivative action show the increase of both ride comfort and road-holding performances by maximizing the use of suspension deflections. The potential of derivative control is shown by the performances of the car traveling over a bump and braking.     

车辆有线引导的计算机视觉系统

根据车辆自动引导系统在车辆工程中的应用及发展趋势，开展了用计算机视觉技术进行车辆有线引导的基础研究，描述了系统的基本组成及其主要功能，分析了影响视觉输入的各项基本因素。根据哈夫（Ｈｏｕｇｈ）变换的基本原理，设计了引导路线检测的算法，通过典型引导路线特征图象的试验分析，验证了算法对直线特征的检测性能、对复杂背景下直线检测的可靠性和对实际道路中的中心引导线检测的有效性。分析了控制模型中实用视觉系统检测     

Level and attitude control of the active suspension system with integral and derivative action

A 7-DOF full-car model with optimal active control suspension is utilized to evaluate the vehicle dynamic performances which are achieved through proposed controllers. The optimal controller, which includes the integral action for the suspension deflection, considerably improves the attitude control of a vehicle because the rolling and pitching motion in cornering and braking maneuvers are reduced, respectively. In the viewpoint of level control, the integral control acting on the suspension deflection results in the zero steady-state deflection in response to static body forces and ramp road input. The dynamic characteristics of the suspension control system are evaluated in terms of time domain and frequency domain. The simulations in the time domain demonstrate the advantages of the active suspension system obtained by penalizing the integral and derivative of suspension deflections and the derivative of roll and pitch angles in the performance index. The frequency characteristic curves obtained by simulations regarding integral action or derivative action show the increase of both ride comfort and road-holding performances by maximizing the use of suspension deflections. The potential of derivative control is shown by the performances of the car traveling over a bump and braking.     

Performance analysis of a CVT clutch system for a hybrid electric vehicle

In this study, the performance of a CVT clutch system for a hybrid electric vehicle was investigated. To analyzed the vehicle performance at restart, the restart delay and driveshaft torque was investigated by simulations and experiments. It was found from the simulation results that the vehicle restart response depends on the clutch pressure buildup time to the point where the clutch torque begins to overcome the vehicle road load, and driving comfort at restart is directly related to the rate change of the clutch pressure.     

Robust design of a passive linear quarter car suspension system using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm and analytical robustness indexes

This paper deals with the robust design of a passive vehicle suspension system. A robust design methodology based on a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) is used to handle the trade-off between the considered conflicting performance requirements under uncertainty and feasibility constraints. A constrained multi-objective optimisation problem is formulated and the notion of Pareto-optimality is used to increase the quality of the candidate design solutions obtained at each generation by the MOEA. To save computation time, a simplified physical model (quarter car) is considered and the optimisation is performed in the frequency domain, using relevant transmissibilities of the system. The robustness is directly investigated by means of analytical robustness indexes. Time-consuming a posteriori methods, like designs of experiments or Monte Carlo analysis, are therefore avoided. A set of non-dominated solutions is obtained. Thus the designer not only selects a special design, in accordance with the wanted vehicle configuration, but also includes the robustness of each performance requirement in his final decision.     

信号控制下交叉口延误计算方法研究

为了对交通信号控制参数进行优化,需要对交叉口延误进行定量的分析与计算。根据信号控制交叉口理论,在以往定时信号延误研究的基础上,基于交叉口一个进口方向的车辆延误分析,针对交叉口各进口方向同时处于非饱和与同时处于过饱和交通状况,分析并推导了交叉口延误公式.并用具体的算例说明了公式的用法。公式表明了交叉口延误与信号控制参数、车辆到达率等参数之间的动态关系,为进一步研究交通信号自适应控制方法和建立交通信号控制参数优化的性能指标函数提供了信息。