eRSS-RAMP: A Rule-Adherence Motion Planner Based on Extended Responsibility-Sensitive Safety for Autonomous Driving

Driving safety and responsibility determination are indispensable pieces of the puzzle for autonomous driving. They are also deeply related to the allocation of right-of-way and the determination of accident liability. Therefore, Intel/Mobileye designed the responsibility-sensitive safety (RSS) framework to further enhance the safety regulation of autonomous driving, which mathematically defines rules for autonomous vehicles (AVs) behaviors in various traffic scenarios. However, the RSS framework's rules are relatively rudimentary in certain scenarios characterized by interaction uncertainty, especially those requiring collaborative driving during emergency collision avoidance. Besides, the integration of the RSS framework with motion planning is rarely discussed in current studies. Therefore, we proposed a rule-adherence motion planner (RAMP) based on the extended RSS (eRSS) regulation for non-connected and connected AVs in merging and emergency-avoiding scenarios. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method can achieve faster and safer lane merging performance (53.0% shorter merging length and a 73.5% decrease in merging time), and allows for more stable steering maneuvers in emergency collision avoidance, resulting in smoother paths for ego vehicle and surrounding vehicles.

Large Language Models for Human-like Autonomous Driving: A Survey

Large Language Models (LLMs), AI models trained on massive text corpora with remarkable language understanding and generation capabilities, are transforming the field of Autonomous Driving (AD). As AD systems evolve from rule-based and optimization-based methods to learning-based techniques like deep reinforcement learning, they are now poised to embrace a third and more advanced category: knowledge-based AD empowered by LLMs. This shift promises to bring AD closer to human-like AD. However, integrating LLMs into AD systems poses challenges in real-time inference, safety assurance, and deployment costs. This survey provides a comprehensive and critical review of recent progress in leveraging LLMs for AD, focusing on their applications in modular AD pipelines and end-to-end AD systems. We highlight key advancements, identify pressing challenges, and propose promising research directions to bridge the gap between LLMs and AD, thereby facilitating the development of more human-like AD systems. The survey first introduces LLMs' key features and common training schemes, then delves into their applications in modular AD pipelines and end-to-end AD, respectively, followed by discussions on open challenges and future directions. Through this in-depth analysis, we aim to provide insights and inspiration for researchers and practitioners working at the intersection of AI and autonomous vehicles, ultimately contributing to safer, smarter, and more human-centric AD technologies.

Accurate Cooperative Localization Utilizing LiDAR-equipped Roadside Infrastructure for Autonomous Driving

Recent advancements in LiDAR technology have significantly lowered costs and improved both its precision and resolution, thereby solidifying its role as a critical component in autonomous vehicle localization. Using sophisticated 3D registration algorithms, LiDAR now facilitates vehicle localization with centimeter-level accuracy. However, these high-precision techniques often face reliability challenges in environments devoid of identifiable map features. To address this limitation, we propose a novel approach that utilizes road side units (RSU) with vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications to assist vehicle self-localization. By using RSUs as stationary reference points and processing real-time LiDAR data, our method enhances localization accuracy through a cooperative localization framework. By placing RSUs in critical areas, our proposed method can improve the reliability and precision of vehicle localization when the traditional vehicle self-localization technique falls short. Evaluation results in an end-to-end autonomous driving simulator AWSIM show that the proposed method can improve localization accuracy by up to 80% under vulnerable environments compared to traditional localization methods. Additionally, our method also demonstrates robust resistance to network delays and packet loss in heterogeneous network environments.

A Rule-Compliance Path Planner for Lane-Merge Scenarios Based on Responsibility-Sensitive Safety

Lane merging is one of the critical tasks for self-driving cars, and how to perform lane-merge maneuvers effectively and safely has become one of the important standards in measuring the capability of autonomous driving systems. However, due to the ambiguity in driving intentions and right-of-way issues, the lane merging process in autonomous driving remains deficient in terms of maintaining or ceding the right-of-way and attributing liability, which could result in protracted durations for merging and problems such as trajectory oscillation. Hence, we present a rule-compliance path planner (RCPP) for lane-merge scenarios, which initially employs the extended responsibility-sensitive safety (RSS) to elucidate the right-of-way, followed by the potential field-based sigmoid planner for path generation. In the simulation, we have validated the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. The algorithm demonstrated superior performance over previous approaches in aspects such as merging time (Saved 72.3%), path length (reduced 53.4%), and eliminating the trajectory oscillation.

RaceMOP: Mapless Online Path Planning for Multi-Agent Autonomous Racing using Residual Policy Learning

The interactive decision-making in multi-agent autonomous racing offers insights valuable beyond the domain of self-driving cars. Mapless online path planning is particularly of practical appeal but poses a challenge for safely overtaking opponents due to the limited planning horizon. Accordingly, this paper introduces RaceMOP, a novel method for mapless online path planning designed for multi-agent racing of F1TENTH cars. Unlike classical planners that depend on predefined racing lines, RaceMOP operates without a map, relying solely on local observations to overtake other race cars at high speed. Our approach combines an artificial potential field method as a base policy with residual policy learning to introduce long-horizon planning capabilities. We advance the field by introducing a novel approach for policy fusion with the residual policy directly in probability space. Our experiments for twelve simulated racetracks validate that RaceMOP is capable of long-horizon decision-making with robust collision avoidance during overtaking maneuvers. RaceMOP demonstrates superior handling over existing mapless planners while generalizing to unknown racetracks, paving the way for further use of our method in robotics. We make the open-source code for RaceMOP available at http://github.com/raphajaner/racemop.

Clothoid Curve-based Emergency-Stopping Path Planning with Adaptive Potential Field for Autonomous Vehicles

The Potential Field (PF)-based path planning method is widely adopted for autonomous vehicles (AVs) due to its real-time efficiency and simplicity. PF often creates a rigid road boundary, and while this ensures that the ego vehicle consistently operates within the confines of the road, it also brings a lurking peril in emergency scenarios. If nearby vehicles suddenly switch lanes, the AV has to veer off and brake to evade a collision, leading to the "blind alley" effect. In such a situation, the vehicle can become trapped or confused by the conflicting forces from the obstacle vehicle PF and road boundary PF, often resulting in indecision or erratic behavior, even crashes. To address the above-mentioned challenges, this research introduces an Emergency-Stopping Path Planning (ESPP) that incorporates an adaptive PF (APF) and a clothoid curve for urgent evasion. First, we design an emergency triggering estimation to detect the "blind alley" problem by analyzing the PF distribution. Second, we regionalize the driving scene to search the optimal breach point on the road PF and the final stopping point for the vehicle by considering the possible motion range of the obstacle. Finally, we use the optimized clothoid curve to fit these calculated points under vehicle dynamics constraints to generate a smooth emergency avoidance path. The proposed ESPP-based APF method was evaluated by conducting the co-simulation between MATLAB/Simulink and CarSim Simulator in a freeway scene. The simulation results reveal that the proposed method shows increased performance in emergency collision avoidance and renders the vehicle safer, in which the duration of wheel slip is 61.9% shorter, and the maximum steering angle amplitude is 76.9% lower than other potential field-based methods.

Time-to-Collision-Aware Lane-Change Strategy Based on Potential Field and Cubic Polynomial for Autonomous Vehicles

Making safe and successful lane changes (LCs) is one of the many vitally important functions of autonomous vehicles (AVs) that are needed to ensure safe driving on expressways. Recently, the simplicity and real-time performance of the potential field (PF) method have been leveraged to design decision and planning modules for AVs. However, the LC trajectory planned by the PF method is usually lengthy and takes the ego vehicle laterally parallel and close to the obstacle vehicle, which creates a dangerous situation if the obstacle vehicle suddenly steers. To mitigate this risk, we propose a time-to-collision-aware LC (TTCA-LC) strategy based on the PF and cubic polynomial in which the TTC constraint is imposed in the optimized curve fitting. The proposed approach is evaluated using MATLAB/Simulink under high-speed conditions in a comparative driving scenario. The simulation results indicate that the TTCA-LC method performs better than the conventional PF-based LC (CPF-LC) method in generating shorter, safer, and smoother trajectories. The length of the LC trajectory is shortened by over 27.1\%, and the curvature is reduced by approximately 56.1\% compared with the CPF-LC method.

Potential Field-based Path Planning with Interactive Speed Optimization for Autonomous Vehicles

Path planning is critical for autonomous vehicles (AVs) to determine the optimal route while considering constraints and objectives. The potential field (PF) approach has become prevalent in path planning due to its simple structure and computational efficiency. However, current PF methods used in AVs focus solely on the path generation of the ego vehicle while assuming that the surrounding obstacle vehicles drive at a preset behavior without the PF-based path planner, which ignores the fact that the ego vehicle's PF could also impact the path generation of the obstacle vehicles. To tackle this problem, we propose a PF-based path planning approach where local paths are shared among ego and obstacle vehicles via vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. Then by integrating this shared local path into an objective function, a new optimization function called interactive speed optimization (ISO) is designed to allow driving safety and comfort for both ego and obstacle vehicles. The proposed method is evaluated using MATLAB/Simulink in the urgent merging scenarios by comparing it with conventional methods. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method can mitigate the impact of other AVs' PFs by slowing down in advance, effectively reducing the oscillations for both ego and obstacle AVs.

Occlusion-Aware Path Planning for Collision Avoidance: Leveraging Potential Field Method with Responsibility-Sensitive Safety

Collision avoidance (CA) has always been the foremost task for autonomous vehicles (AVs) under safety criteria. And path planning is directly responsible for generating a safe path to accomplish CA while satisfying other commands. Due to the real-time computation and simple structure, the potential field (PF) has emerged as one of the mainstream path-planning algorithms. However, the current PF is primarily simulated in ideal CA scenarios, assuming complete obstacle information while disregarding occlusion issues where obstacles can be partially or entirely hidden from the AV's sensors. During the occlusion period, the occluded obstacles do not possess a PF. Once the occlusion is over, these obstacles can generate an instantaneous virtual force that impacts the ego vehicle. Therefore, we propose an occlusion-aware path planning (OAPP) with the responsibility-sensitive safety (RSS)-based PF to tackle the occlusion problem for non-connected AVs. We first categorize the detected and occluded obstacles, and then we proceed to the RSS violation check. Finally, we can generate different virtual forces from the PF for occluded and non-occluded obstacles. We compare the proposed OAPP method with other PF-based path planning methods via MATLAB/Simulink. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method can eliminate instantaneous lateral oscillation or sway and produce a smoother path than conventional PF methods.

How far should self-driving cars see? Effect of observation range on vehicle self-localization

Accuracy and time efficiency are two essential requirements for the self-localization of autonomous vehicles. While the observation range considered for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) has a significant effect on both accuracy and computation time, its effect is not well investigated in the literature. In this paper, we will answer the question: How far should a driverless car observe during self-localization? We introduce a framework to dynamically define the observation range for localization to meet the accuracy requirement for autonomous driving, while keeping the computation time low. To model the effect of scanning range on the localization accuracy for every point on the map, several map factors were employed. The capability of the proposed framework was verified using field data, demonstrating that it is able to improve the average matching time from 142.2 ms to 39.3 ms while keeping the localization accuracy around 8.1 cm.