A Hybrid Control Design for Autonomous Vehicles at Uncontrolled Intersections
This addresses safety and trust in autonomous driving for pedestrians and vehicle operators, but it is incremental as it builds on existing control methods.
The paper tackled the problem of autonomous vehicle-pedestrian interaction at unsignalized intersections by modeling pedestrian gap acceptance and developing a hybrid controller with four modes, which was validated through simulation and compared to a POMDP solution, with experimental results on a research vehicle.
As autonomous vehicles (AVs) inch closer to reality, a central requirement for acceptance will be earning the trust of humans in everyday driving situations. In particular, the interaction between AVs and pedestrians is of high importance, as every human is a pedestrian at some point of the day. This paper considers the interaction of a pedestrian and an autonomous vehicle at a mid-block, unsignalized intersection where there is ambiguity over when the pedestrian should cross and when and how the vehicle should yield. By modeling pedestrian behavior through the concept of gap acceptance, the authors show that a hybrid controller with just four distinct modes allows an autonomous vehicle to successfully interact with a pedestrian across a continuous spectrum of possible crosswalk entry behaviors. The controller is validated through extensive simulation and compared to an alternate POMDP solution and experimental results are provided on a research vehicle for a virtual pedestrian.