Traffic Environment Simulation Model Design and Implementation

Testing and assessing of vehicle control systems require realistic environment, which requires enormous workload; to some extend it is impractical to set up the realistic environment. A comprehensive traffic environment simulation model has been designed and implemented for supporting vehicle control system development. The model consists of tow sub models: the motorway traffic flow model and driver behaviour model. The traffic flow model provides realistic simulation according with empirical data collected from a typical section of motorway. Following this, the principle of microscopic simulation and the representation of road users are discussed. Driver models for both car following and lane changing are then developed. The microscopic parameters in the driver models are then optimized to fit the simulation results with existing empirical data. The integrated simulation software provides support for vehicle control system development such as adaptive cruise control system.