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A rapid path-planning algorithm that generates drivable paths for an autonomous vehicle operating in structural road is proposed in this paper. Cubic B-spline curve is adopted to generating smooth path for continuous curvature and, more, parametric basic points of the spline is adjusted to controlling the curvature extremum for kinematic constraints on vehicle. Other than previous approaches such as inverse kinematics, model-based prediction postprocess approach or closed-loop forward simulation, using the kinematics model in each iteration of path for smoothing and controlling curvature leading to time consumption increasing, our method characterized the vehicle curvature constraint by the minimum length of segment line, which synchronously realized constraint and smooth for generating path. And Differ from the path of robot escaping from a maze, the intelligent vehicle traveling on road in structured environments needs to meet the traffic rules.

In the autonomous driving perception task, the accuracy of target detection is an essential evaluation, especially for small targets. In this work, we propose a multi-sensor fusion neural network that combines radar and image data to improve the confidence level of the camera when detecting targets and the accuracy of the prediction box regression. The fusion network is based on the basic structure of single-shot multi-box detection (SSD). Inspired by the attention mechanism in image processing, our work incorporates the a priori knowledge of radar detection in the convolutional block attention module (CBAM), which forms a new attention mechanism module called radar convolutional block attention module (RCBAM). We add the RCBAM into the SSD target detection network to build a deep neural network fusing millimeter-wave radar and camera.

Object detection is an important visual content of the autonomous vehicle, the traditional detecting methods usually cost a lot of computational memory and elapsed time. This paper proposes to use lightweight deep convolutional neural network (MobilenetV3-SSDLite) to carry out the object detection task of autonomous vehicles. Simulation analysis based on this method is implemented, the feature layer obtained after h-swish activation function in the first Conv of the 13th bottleneck module in MobilenetV3 is taken as the first effective feature layer, and the feature layer before pooling and convolution of the antepenultimate layer in MobilenetV3 is taken as the second effective feature layer, and these two feature layers are extracted from the MobilenetV3 network.

The main challenge for future autonomous vehicles is to identify their location and body pose in real time during driving, that is, “where am I? and how will I go?”. We address the problems of pose estimation and scene perception from continuous visual frames in intelligent vehicle. Recent advanced technology in the domain of deep learning proposes to train some learning models for vehicle’s series detection tasks in a supervised or unsupervised manner, which has numerous advances over traditional approaches, mainly reflected in the absence of manual calibration and synchronization of the camera and IMU. In the paper, we propose a novel approach for pose estimation and scene recognition with a deep fusion of multi-modal neural features in the manner of unsupervised. Firstly, low-cost camera and IMU are used to extract original visual and inertial data, then the visual and inertial encoders are utilized to encoder the feature of the two modes.

Intelligent and connected vehicle (ICV) and new energy vehicle (NEV) will be two important directions of the automotive technology in the future, and the coordinated development of these two directions reflects relevantly the higher requirements put forward by nowadays society and people. Through the use of intelligent and connected technology (ICT), NEVs can exchange various traffic information data with the outside world (e.g. other running vehicles, road infrastructure, internet, etc.) in real time, which is so-called Vehicle to Everything (V2X). Based on the further analysis of the mutual traffic information, the vehicles can identify the current driving conditions and predict the future driving conditions effectively, which can realize the real time optimization of the energy management strategies (EMSs) of vehicles’ powertrain system, so as to meet the driving requirements of vehicles under different driving conditions.

Since situational awareness is crucial for autonomous driving in urban environments, multi-target tracking has become an increasingly popular research topic during the last several years. For autonomous driving in urban environments, cars and pedestrians are the two main types of obstacles, and their motion characteristics are not the same. While in the current related multi-target tracking research, the same motion model (such as Constant Velocity model [CV]) or motion model set (such as CV combined with Constant Acceleration model [CA]) is mostly used to track different types of obstacles simultaneously. Besides, in current research, regular motion models are mostly adopted to track pedestrians, such as CV, CA, and so on, the uncertainty in pedestrian motion is not well considered.

Automotive security has become one of important topics in recent years under new automotive Electronic and Electrical Architecture (EEA). With the development of Intelligent Connected Vehicle (ICV), it has become possible to hack an automotive through in-vehicle networks. The introduction of Information Communications Technology (ICT) brings more risk threats to automotive. Researchers have shown that an attacker can easily tamper with many automotive functions via On-Board Diagnostic II (OBD-II) or In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI). In order to protect automotive against malicious attacks, automotive security risks were analyzed and then security mechanisms based on network firewall were designed in this paper. Automotive network firewall is a security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffics of automotive based on predetermined security rules. The main functions of network firewall include packet filter, anti-DoS and access control.

Safety is the cornerstone for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Driving Systems (ADS). To assess the safety of a traffic situation, it is essential to predict motion states of traffic participants in the future with mathematic models. Accurate vehicle trajectory prediction is an important prerequisite for reasonable traffic situation risk assessment and appropriate decision making. Vehicle trajectory prediction methods can be generally divided into motion model based methods and maneuver model based methods. Vehicle trajectory prediction based on motion models can be accurate and reliable only in the short term. While vehicle trajectory prediction based on maneuver models present more satisfactory performance in the long term, these maneuver models rely on machine learning methods. Abundant data should be collected to train the maneuver recognition model, which increases complexity and lowers real-time performance.

Autonomous vehicle performance is increasingly highlighted in many highway driving scenarios, which leads to more priorities to vehicle stability as well as tracking accuracy. In this paper, a nonlinear model predictive controller for autonomous vehicle trajectory tracking is designed and verified through a real-time simulation bench of a virtual test track. The dynamic stability constraints of nonlinear model predictive control (NLMPC) are obtained by a novel quadrilateral stability region criterion instead of the conventional phase plane method using the double-line region. First, a typical lane change scene of overtaking is selected and a new composited trajectory model is proposed as a reference path that combines smoothness of sine wave and comfort of linear functional path. Reference lateral velocity, azimuth angle, yaw rate, and front wheel steering angle are subsequently taken into account.

The scenario-based test method is now drawing more and more attention in the field of the test for autonomous vehicles. The predefined scenarios are used in the safety verification and performance evaluation of autonomous vehicles. However, the traditional generation method for predefined scenarios is parameterized and open-looped, which makes it challenging to generate diverse and complex scenarios. It is critical when testing high-level autonomous vehicles to verify their reliability in multiple behavior transitions. In this paper, a generation method for the continuous scenario is proposed to realize a function-driven iteration of scenarios for autonomous driving systems (ADS). The method consists of a functional model of ADS and a formal description of abstract scenario.

In order to realize driving safety in highway scenarios, autonomous vehicles need to predict and reason about the driving intentions and motion trajectories of surrounding target vehicles in the near feature. Essentially, trajectory prediction of target vehicles can be viewed as a typical time series generation problem, which predicts the future trajectory of the vehicle through analyzing the input of historical trajectory information or its control signals. In actual traffic scenarios, the movement between vehicles is a process of mutual game and cooperation, namely the future trajectory of a vehicle is not only related to its own historical trajectory, but also to surrounding vehicles motion. However, different surrounding traffic participants have different influence on the target vehicle, and the future motion of the vehicle is often affected by some specific surrounding traffic agents deeply.

Multiple object detection and tracking are central aspects of modeling the environment of autonomous vehicles. Lidar is a necessary component in the autonomous driving system. Without Lidar sensors, we will most probably not see fully self-driving cars become a reality. Lidar sensing gives us high-resolution data by sending out thousands of laser signals. In advanced driver assistance systems or automated driving systems, 3-D point clouds from lidar scans are typically used to measure physical surfaces. Lidar is a powerful sensor that you can use in challenging environments where other sensors might prove inadequate. Lidar can provide a complete 360-degree view of a scene. This paper designs Lidar based multi-target detection and tracking system based on the traditional point cloud processing method including down-sampling, denoising, segmentation, and clustering objects.

Multi-Target tracking is a central aspect of modeling the surrounding environment of autonomous vehicles. Automotive millimeter-wave radar is a necessary component in the autonomous driving system. One of the biggest advantages of radar is it measures the velocity directly. Another big advantage is that the radar is less influenced by environmental conditions. It can work day and night, in rainy or snowy conditions. In the expressway scenario, the forward-looking radar can generate multiple objects, to properly track the leading vehicle or neighbor-lane vehicle, a multi-target tracking algorithm is required. How to associate the track and the measurement or data association is an important question in a multi-target tracking system. This paper applies the nearest-neighbor method to solve the data association problem and uses an extended Kalman filter to update the state of the track.

Deep neural network models have been widely used for environment perception of intelligent vehicles. However, due to models’ innate probabilistic property, the lack of transparency, and sensitivity to data, perception results have inevitable uncertainties. To compensate for the weakness of probabilistic models, many pieces of research have been proposed to analyze and quantify such uncertainties. For safety-critical intelligent vehicles, the uncertainty analysis of data and models for environment perception is especially important. Uncertainty estimation can be a way to quantify the risk of environment perception. In this regard, it is essential to deliver a comprehensive survey. This work presents a comprehensive overview of uncertainty estimation in deep neural networks for environment perception of intelligent vehicles.

Visual sensors are widely used in autonomous vehicles (AVs) for object detection due to the advantages of abundant information and low-cost. But the performance of visual sensors is highly affected by low light conditions when AVs driving at nighttime and in the tunnel. The low light conditions decrease the image quality and the performance of object detection, and may cause safety of the intended functionality (SOTIF) problems. Therefore, to analyze the performance limitations of visual sensors in low light conditions, a controlled light experiment on a proving ground is designed. The influences of low light conditions on the two-stage algorithm and the single-stage algorithm are compared and analyzed quantificationally by constructing an evaluation index set from three aspects of missing detection, classification, and positioning accuracy.

With the widespread application of autonomous driving technology, occupant comfort has become a key topic. Occupant comfort of autonomous vehicles depends on the driving system’s performance, so studying the causes of occupant discomfort will help design driving systems. In addition to the discomfort in NVH and thermal comfort, occupant comfort is also affected by other factors such as safety perception. To study the impact of safety perception on comfort, this paper designed a road experiment and focused on the overtaking scenarios. Because the interaction between the ego vehicle and others is strong during overtaking, the occupants are more likely to receive visual stimuli, resulting in discomfort caused by safety perception. In the experiment, occupant discomfort scores were collected in real-time by the tool developed in this paper.

Recent researches in autonomous driving mainly consider the uncertainty in perception and prediction modules for safety enhancement. However, obstacles which block the field-of-view (FOV) of sensors could generate blind areas and leaves environmental uncertainty a remaining challenge for autonomous vehicles. Current solutions mainly rely on passive obstacles avoidance in path planning instead of active perception to deal with unexplored high-risky areas. In view of the problem, this paper introduces the concept of information entropy, which quantifies uncertain information in the blind area, into the motion planning module of autonomous vehicles. Based on model predictive control (MPC) scheme, the proposed algorithm can plan collision-free trajectories while actively explore unknown areas to minimize environmental uncertainty. Simulation results under various challenging scenarios demonstrate the improvement in safety and comfort with the proposed perception-aware planning scheme.

LiDAR and camera fusion have emerged as a promising approach for improving place recognition in robotics and autonomous vehicles. However, most existing approaches often treat sensors separately, overlooking the potential benefits of correlation between them. In this paper, we propose a Cross- Modality Module (CMM) to leverage the potential correlation of LiDAR and camera features for place recognition. Besides, to fully exploit potential of each modality, we propose a Local-Global Fusion Module to supplement global coarse-grained features with local fine-grained features. The experiment results on public datasets demonstrate that our approach effectively improves the average recall by 2.3%, reaching 98.7%, compared with simply stacking of LiDAR and camera.

Radar is playing more and important role in multiple object detection and tracking system due to the fact that Radar can not only determine the velocity instantly but also it is less influenced by environment conditions. However, Radar faces the problem that it has many detection clutter，false alarms and detection results are easily affected by the reflected echoes of road boundary in traffic scenes. Besides this, With the increase of the number of targets and the number of effective echoes, the number of interconnection matrices increases exponentially in joint probability data association, which will seriously affect the real-time and accuracy of high-speed scene algorithms.in the tracking system. So, A method of using millimeter wave radar to detect and fit the boundary guardrail of high-speed road is proposed, and the fitting results are applied to the vehicle detection and tracking system to improve the tracking accuracy.

On account of the insufficient lane-changing scenario test cases and the inability to conduct graded evaluation testing in current autonomous driving system field testing, this paper proposed an approach that combined data-driven and knowledge-driven methods to extract lane-changing test concrete scenarios with graded risk levels for field testing. Firstly, an analysis of the potentially hazardous areas in lane-changing scenarios was conducted to derive key functional lane-changing scenarios. Three typical key functional lane-changing scenarios were selected, namely, lane-changing with a preceding vehicle braking, lane-changing with a preceding vehicle in the same direction, and lane-changing with a rear cruising vehicle in the adjacent lane, and their corresponding safety goals were respectively analyzed. Secondly, the GAMAB criterion was introduced as an evaluation standard for autonomous driving systems.