Cooperative controllers for highways based on human experience

The AUTOPIA program has been working on the development of intelligent autonomous vehicles for the last 10 years. Its latest advances have focused on the development of cooperative manœuvres based on communications involving several vehicles. However, so far, these manœuvres have been tested only on private tracks that emulate urban environments. The first experiments with autonomous vehicles on real highways, in the framework of the grand cooperative driving challenge (GCDC) where several vehicles had to cooperate in order to perform cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC), are described. In this context, the main challenge was to translate, through fuzzy controllers, human driver experience to these scenarios. This communication describes the experiences deriving from this competition, specifically that concerning the controller and the system implemented in a Citröen C3.

► The main challenge was to translate, through fuzzy controllers, human driver experience to highway scenarios.
► We develop new controllers capable of working at any speed range.
► Different cooperative manoeuvres had been tested involving three and four of our own vehicles, giving good results.
► The adjustments were made to them, based on our driving experiences, in a short time.
► The communication systems will play a key role in the future in traffic safety.