Semiautonomous Longitudinal Collision Avoidance Using a Probabilistic Decision Threshold

Automated emergency maneuvering systems can avoid or reduce the severity of collisions by taking control of a vehicle away from the driver during high-risk situations. The choice of when to switch to emergency control is challenging in the presence of uncertain information (imperfect sensors, road conditions, uncertain object behavior, etc.) and many dynamic obstacles. This paper considers longitudinal collision avoidance problems for a vehicle traveling along a known path. A probabilistic decision threshold framework is presented in which the user’s control is overridden if the probability that it would lead the system into an unsafe state exceeds some threshold. We apply the technique to collision imminent braking for obstacles traveling along the vehicle’s path, and present preliminary results extending the technique to the scenario of obstacles crossing the vehicle’s path.