Socially Acceptable Collision Avoidance System for Vulnerable Road Users

:This paper considers the problem of avoidance of collision with vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists during automated driving. An elastic band based collision avoidance method is used to calculate a collision free path. Safety distance improvements are proposed in order to provide social acceptance of the collision avoidance maneuver. After determining the collision free path, an automated robust path following control system is used to follow the calculated path. The proposed approach is tested with realistic simulations using a validated nonlinear vehicle dynamics model.