Fredrik Sandblom

A Probabilistic Framework for Decision-Making in Collision Avoidance Systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of decision-making in systems that assist drivers in avoiding collisions. An important aspect of these systems is not only assisting the driver when needed but also not disturbing the driver with unnecessary interventions. Aimed at improving both of these properties, a probabilistic framework is presented for jointly evaluating the driver acceptance of an intervention and the necessity thereof to automatically avoid a collision. The intervention acceptance is modeled as high if it estimated that the driver judges the situation as critical, based on the drivers observations and predictions of the traffic situation. One advantage with the proposed framework is that interventions can be initiated at an earlier stage when the estimated driver acceptance is high. Using a simplified driver model, the framework is applied to a few different types of collision scenarios. The results show that the framework has appealing properties, both with respect to increasing the system benefit and to decreasing the risk of unnecessary interventions.

Extended Object Tracking using a Radar Resolution Model

The work presented here concerns the problem of vehicle tracking when multiple radar reflection centers could be resolved on each vehicle. For this extended target tracking problem we propose a radar sensor model, capable of describing such measurements, incorporating sensor resolution. Furthermore, we introduce approximations to handle the inherently complex data association problem. The evaluation in terms of describing measured data and resulting tracking performance shows that the model effectively exploits the information in multiple vehicle detections.

A New Vehicle Motion Model for Improved Predictions and Situation Assessment

Reliable and accurate vehicle motion models are of vital importance for automotive active safety systems for a number of reasons. First of all, these models are necessary in tracking algorithms that provide the safety system with information. Second, the motion model is often used by the safety application to make long-term predictions about the future traffic situation. These predictions are then part of the basic data used by the system to determine if, when, and how to intervene. In this paper, we suggest a framework for designing accurate vehicle motion models. The resulting models differ from conventional models in that the expected control input from the driver is included. By also providing a methodology for a formal treatment of the uncertainties, a model structure well suited, e.g., in a tracking algorithm, is obtained. To utilize the framework in an application will require careful design and validation of submodels to calculate the expected driver control input. We illustrate the potential of the framework by examining the performance for a specific model example using real measurements. The properties are compared with those of a constant acceleration model. Evaluations indicate that the proposed model yields better predictions and that it has an ability to estimate the prediction uncertainties.

Moment Estimation Using a Marginalized Transform

We present a method for estimating mean and covariance of a transformed Gaussian random variable. The method is based on evaluations of the transforming function and resembles the unscented transform and Gauss-Hermite integration in that respect. The information provided by the evaluations is used in a Bayesian framework to form a posterior description of the parameters in a model of the transforming function. Estimates are then derived by marginalizing these parameters from the analytical expression of the mean and covariance. An estimation algorithm, based on the assumption that the transforming function can be described using Hermite polynomials, is presented and applied to the non-linear filtering problem. The resulting marginalized transform (MT) estimator is compared to the cubature rule, the unscented transform and the divided difference estimator. The evaluations show that the presented method performs better than these methods, more specifically in estimating the covariance matrix. Contrary to the unscented transform, the resulting approximation of the covariance matrix is guaranteed to be positive-semidefinite.

Probabilistic threat assessment and driver modeling in collision avoidance systems

This paper presents a probabilistic framework for decision-making in collision avoidance systems, targeting all types of collision scenarios with all types of single road users and objects. Decisions on when and how to assist the driver are made by taking a Bayesian approach to estimate how a collision can be avoided by an autonomous brake intervention, and the probability that the driver will consider the intervention as motivated. The driver model makes it possible to initiate earlier braking when it is estimated that the driver acceptance for interventions is high. The framework and the proposed driver model are evaluated in several scenarios, using authentic tracker data and a differential GPS. It is shown that the driver model can increase the benefit of collision avoidance systems — particularly in traffic situations where the future trajectory of another road user is hard for the driver to predict, e.g. when a playing child enters the roadway.

Sensor data fusion for multiple configurations

This paper presents a fusion architecture designed for vehicle manufacturers that use multiple sensor systems to realize several active safety applications, ranging from standard systems to autonomous systems. Advantages and disadvantages of design choices are discussed and the methods we have chosen to implement in two demonstrator vehicles are used as examples. The main contributions are the separation of the architecture into three categories, the state vector parametrization, and the use of multiple output-lists. Together, these choices make it possible to re-use verified core functionality while filters can be independently tuned to meet application-specific requirements.