Development and evaluation of collision warning/collision avoidance algorithms using an errable driver model

Collision warning/collision avoidance (CW/CA) systems must be designed to work seamlessly with a human driver, providing warning or control actions when the driver’s response (or lack of) is deemed inappropriate. The effectiveness of CW/CA systems working with a human driver needs to be evaluated thoroughly because of legal/liability and other (e.g. traffic flow) concerns. CW/CA systems tuned only under open-loop manoeuvres were frequently found to work unsatisfactorily with human-in-theloop. However, tuning CW/CA systems with human drivers co-existing is slow and non-repeatable. Driver models, if constructed and used properly, can capture human/control interactions and accelerate the CW/CA development process. Design and evaluation methods for CW/CA algorithms can be categorised into three approaches, scenario-based, performance-based and human-centred. The strength and weakness of these approaches were discussed in this paper and a humanised errable driver model was introduced to improve the developing process. The errable driver model used in this paper is a model that emulates human driver’s functions and can generate both nominal (error-free) and devious (with error) behaviours. The car-following data used for developing and validating the model were obtained from a large-scale naturalistic driving database. Three error-inducing behaviours were introduced: human perceptual limitation, time delay and distraction. By including these error-inducing behaviours, rear-end collisions with a lead vehicle were found to occur at a probability similar to traffic accident statistics in the USA. This driver model is then used to evaluate the performance of several existing CW/CA algorithms. Finally, a new CW/CA algorithm was developed based on this errable driver model.