Traffic accidents and congestion are problems which are becoming increasingly severe for automotive traffic and transportation systems. The prevention of severe accidents caused by a driver's inadvertent departure from the traffic lane presents a challenging problem due to the ever growing demands on the current vehicle and highway infrastructure. Inadvertent lane departure can be prevented by automatic lateral control of the vehicle, a component of an Automated Highway System (AHS). As a method of addressing this problem, a lateral control system is being developed which features the use of currently existing infrastructure elements such as reflective lane markers to provide a reference of the roadway reference of the roadway ahead. A dynamic vehicle model including the tyre characteristics and the steering actuator dynamics has been developed to verify the performance of the lateral control algorithm. (A)
Abstract