Sergei S. Avedisov

Deyuan Qu, Qi Chen, Yongqi Zhu et al.

In cooperative perception studies, there is often a trade-off between communication bandwidth and perception performance. While current feature fusion solutions are known for their excellent object detection performance, transmitting the entire sets of intermediate feature maps requires substantial bandwidth. Furthermore, these fusion approaches are typically limited to vehicles that use identical detection models. Our goal is to develop a solution that supports cooperative perception across vehicles equipped with different modalities of sensors. This method aims to deliver improved perception performance compared to late fusion techniques, while achieving precision similar to the state-of-art intermediate fusion, but requires an order of magnitude less bandwidth. We propose HEAD, a method that fuses features from the classification and regression heads in 3D object detection networks. Our method is compatible with heterogeneous detection networks such as LiDAR PointPillars, SECOND, VoxelNet, and camera Bird's-eye View (BEV) Encoder. Given the naturally smaller feature size in the detection heads, we design a self-attention mechanism to fuse the classification head and a complementary feature fusion layer to fuse the regression head. Our experiments, comprehensively evaluated on the V2V4Real and OPV2V datasets, demonstrate that HEAD is a fusion method that effectively balances communication bandwidth and perception performance.

Rafael Molina-Masegosa, Sergei S. Avedisov, Miguel Sepulcre et al.

This paper examines the critical role of intent-sharing in enabling effective maneuver coordination for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). Successful maneuver coordinations require vehicles to accurately know other vehicles' driving intentions. Intent-sharing can be achieved by the remote vehicles directly communicating their plans with the ego vehicle, as opposed to the ego vehicle predicting the trajectory on the remote vehicles' behalf. In this paper, we investigate the potential of intent-sharing on maneuver coordination effectiveness by quantifying the percentage of successful coordinations. We analyze the potential of intent-sharing by comparing its effectiveness for coordinated lane changes in a highway scenario with the effectiveness of a trajectory prediction method based on current kinematic data. Our analysis demonstrates in two scenarios substantial improvements in maneuver coordination when CAVs have direct access to the nearby vehicles' driving intentions through intent sharing. These findings highlight the importance of including intent-sharing in the maneuver coordination protocol.

Rafael Molina-Masegosa, Sergei S. Avedisov, Miguel Sepulcre et al.

This paper presents FORESEE, a novel cooperative lane change model for connected and automated driving. FORESEE leverages Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) data to anticipate traffic conditions and effectively organize lane changes. Specifically, it uses V2X data to organize vehicles into lanes based on their desired speeds, which helps to homogenize traffic flow and reduce disturbances caused by speed differences among vehicles within the same lane. The study demonstrates that implementing cooperative lane changes with FORESEE enhances average vehicle speed and energy efficiency compared to non-cooperative lane changes, which typically rely on short-term and local information about the ego vehicle and its immediate neighbors. This is achieved through fewer but more effective lane changes. Additionally, vehicles can maintain speeds closer to their desired speeds, resulting in fewer fluctuations in speed and acceleration and enhanced driving comfort. Moreover, cooperative lane changes can better manage road traffic disturbances, such as obstacles, by anticipating traffic conditions and organizing lane changes ahead. FORESEE serves as a valuable framework for the future design and testing of V2X-based maneuver coordinations as their effectiveness depends on how vehicles change lanes and their ability to plan and organize maneuvers in consideration of the upcoming traffic conditions.

Rafael Molina-Masegosa, Sergei S. Avedisov, Miguel Sepulcre et al.

Maneuver coordination is a key enabler of connected and automated driving, allowing vehicles to negotiate and execute maneuvers that would otherwise be difficult, inefficient or unsafe. Existing approaches and use cases typically assume coordination with a single predefined target vehicle, which limits the number of coordination opportunities. This paper introduces a maneuver coordination approach based on multi-target selection, which allows a vehicle to identify and select among multiple potential coordination vehicles for a given maneuver. Multi-target maneuver coordination does not require modifications to the maneuver execution logic or to the underlying coordination protocol. Instead, it extends the decision-making process preceding coordination, enabling vehicles to exploit a broader set of feasible cooperative interactions. Results show that multi-target maneuver coordination significantly increases triggered and successfully executed coordinations while maintaining a low computational cost, as the proposed approach achieves these gains without requiring the analysis of a large number of potential target vehicles. These improvements preserve coordination success rates while enabling earlier maneuver initiation.

Rafael Molina-Masegosa, Sergei S. Avedisov, Miguel Sepulcre et al.

Maneuver coordination is essential for cooperative connected automated driving, enabling vehicles to negotiate maneuvers and interactions through V2X communication. While prior work has largely focused on how to initiate and execute coordinations, considerably less attention has been given to how ongoing coordinations should be terminated when they become unsuitable. This paper introduces the first complete design and implementation of maneuver coordination cancellation, including a state machine, message set, and decision-making logic. Our evaluation shows that cancellation significantly reduces the time vehicles spend in coordinations that cannot succeed, allowing them to become available for new maneuvers sooner. This increases the number of triggered coordinations and improves the number of successful maneuver coordinations. Overall, the study demonstrates that maneuver coordination cancellation improves cooperative driving, and establishes a foundation for further refinements that can enhance the efficiency and robustness of connected automated driving.