Lane-Exchanging Driving Strategy for Autonomous Vehicle via Trajectory Prediction and Model Predictive Control

The cooperation between an autonomous vehicle and a nearby vehicle is critical to ensure driving safety in the laneexchanging scenario.The nearby vehicle trajectory needs to be predicted,from which the autonomous vehicle is controlled to prevent possible collisions.This paper proposes a lane-exchanging driving strategy for the autonomous vehicle to cooperate with the nearby vehicle by integrating vehicle trajectory prediction and motion control.A trajectory prediction method is developed to anticipate the nearby vehicle trajectory.The Gaussian mixture model(GMM),together with the vehicle kinematic model,are synthesized to predict the nearby vehicle trajectory.A potential-feldbased model predictive control(MPC)approach is utilized by the autonomous vehicle to conduct the lane-exchanging maneuver.The potential feld of the nearby vehicle is considered in the controller design for collision avoidance.On-road driving data verifcation shows that the nearby vehicle trajectory can be predicted by the proposed method.CarSim®simulations validate that the autonomous vehicle can perform the lane-exchanging maneuver and avoid the nearby vehicle using the proposed driving strategy.The autonomous vehicle can thus safely perform the laneexchanging maneuver and avoid the nearby vehicle.