This paper presents human factors and technical solutions for the Automatic Vehicle Control (AVC) function. One aim of the SAVE (System for effective Assessment of the driver state and Vehicle control in Emergency situations) European Project (DG13) is the development of a system that implements AVC in emergency situations. The Emergency Control Strategy has been defined in terms of safety distances to the surrounding vehicles and lane change criteria during an emergency stopping manoeuvre. The emergency manoeuvre, performed by the vehicle in an automatic way, consists in safely stopping the vehicle without causing any problems to the driver and to the surrounding traffic. A simple scenario is considered for the prototype, but the results can be applied also to different traffic and road conditions.
Abstract