Adviser: Amitabha Mukerjee
Abstract
This work deals with the problem of planning and controlling the motion of a
car-like vehicle in a roadway like environment. The aim has been to simulate
the reactive behaviour of a human driver. The approach has been to develop a
control system for velocity in the longitudinal direction and control the
steering in lateral direction. This is so because a human driver has control
over his velocity and his steering. Through these two parameters his position
in the next time-step is determined as the vehicle moves. The contribution
presented here is a velocity and steering control mechanism based on potential
field. The potential is a function of road width. The vehicle has a desired
velocity which depends on a potential function. The aim of our agent is to
attain this desired velocity through the limits of engine acceleration/braking
and the dynamic constraints. The point of minimum potential along the road
width is the safest point for the vehicle to be at. Thus our agent aims to
steer the vehicle towards the point of minimum potential at every time-step.
We propose a robotics/traffic theory hybrid model. The output of the control
system, i.e. acceleration ( ), will control longitudinal velocity, and the
steering ( ) will control the lateral position (y).