Cooperative Clothoidal-Estimation Based Lane Detection For Vehicle Platooning

Vehicle platooning is an advanced vehicle maneuver that allows for the simultaneous control of several vehicles traveling on the roadway cite{al2010experimental}. Automated platoons, when activated in tractor trailer convoys, have a high potential of increasing the fuel efficiency and improving the utilization of roadways by allowing more vehicles to share the road at the same time. The increased fuel efficiency translates to lower cost on goods and motivates a more environmentally friendly and sustainable economy. In order to achieve the promised fuel savings from vehicle platooning, the vehicles need to follow each other at shorter headways than in typical driving scenarios. The reduced separation distance between the lead and follow vehicle reduces visibility and the reaction time available for the follow vehicle; this renders most modern Active Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) ineffective since they are not designed for operation in such short headway conditions. The focus of this work is related to understanding and improving the failures of Lane Keep Assist (LKA) systems in the follow vehicles of a platoon. In this work, the source of lane detection degradation when using a monocular forward facing camera in short headway platooning is identified. Furthermore, a novel lane augmentation algorithm is proposed to improve the lane detection capability of follow vehicles in a platoon. The lane augmentation process utilizes a longitudinal transformation of lane parameters from the lead to the follow vehicles. The transformation utilizes an accurate understanding of the relative spatial position and orientation of the two vehicles. The transformation also requires a reliable communication system between the two vehicles such as a Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) module. The work presented in this thesis develops theory, simulation and verification using real world data of the proposed cooperative lane augmentation. The results of this work indicate that it is possible to improve vehicle platooning performance by distributing the required sensing across multiple agents of the platoon.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Hunde, Sena Aschalew

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Leonessa, Alexander

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Akbari Hamed, Kaveh
• Southward, Steve C.

• Cooperative Platooning
• Clothoid Lane Detection
• Connected Vehicles
• Lane Detection Augmentation
• Lane Keep Assist
• V2V

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:31431

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/103736