Bringing simulation to life: A mixed reality autonomous intersection

Abstract

Abstract-Fully autonomous vehicles are technologically feasible with the current generation of hardware, as demonstrated by recent robot car competitions. Dresner and Stone proposed a new intersection control protocol called Autonomous Intersection Management (AIM) and showed that with autonomous vehicles it is possible to make intersection control much more efficient than the traditional control mechanisms such as traffic signals and stop signs. The protocol, however, has only been tested in simulation and has not been evaluated with real autonomous vehicles. To realistically test the protocol, we implemented a mixed reality platform on which an autonomous vehicle can interact with multiple virtual vehicles in a simulation at a real intersection in real time. From this platform we validated realistic parameters for our autonomous vehicle to safely traverse an intersection in AIM. We present several techniques to improve efficiency and show that the AIM protocol can still outperform traffic signals and stop signs even if the cars are not as precisely controllable as has been assumed in previous studies.

On the conflict with dioid algebra: Autonomous Intersection Management

“…In other words, the three position markers are required for avoiding collisions, even if the second position marker seems to be the only direct answer to the safety issue because it makes stop the robot prior the conflict zone. This is due to the fact that the movement of the robots is not as predictable as we can usually expect [13]. Besides, wireless communication is not as quick and as reliable as in theoretical study.…”

Sustainability Effects of Next-Generation Intersection Control for Autonomous Vehicles

“…By employing either V2I or V2V communications, previous studies have investigated both centralized and decentralized strategies for managing autonomous vehicles at intersections (Alonso et al 2011;Au et al 2011;Ball, Dulay 2010;Dresner, Stone 2008a, 2008bFajardo et al 2011;Quinlan et al 2010;Shahidi et al 2011;VanMiddlesworth et al 2008;Vasirani, Ossowski 2009;Wu et al 2007Wu et al , 2010Yan et al 2008Yan et al , 2009). Centralized control features an intersection controller that regulates the entire intersection.…”

“…In reservation-based system, intersection is divided into a grid of n-by-n tiles. An intersection central controller, which communicates with all approaching vehicles, decides the passing sequence based on whether certain intersection timespace (in terms of tiles at a certain time) that is needed for a vehicle to traverse through is already reserved by another vehicle (Dresner, Stone 2008a, 2008bFajardo et al 2011;Quinlan et al 2010;Shahidi et al 2011;VanMiddlesworth et al 2008).…”

Setpoint scheduling for autonomous vehicle controllers

“…We choose arrival velocity as the primary objective, because traveling at high velocity through the intersection consumes less of the space-time resource of the intersection [2], [3]. Thus, our optimization procedure involves two steps: first, determine the highest possible arrival velocity the vehicle can achieve, and second, among all the acceleration schedules that yield the highest possible arrival velocity, find the one whose arrival time is the soonest.…”

“…The problem is that the buffer cannot be too large; if it is, the vehicle will need a lot of space in the intersection and will prevent other vehicles from using the space, causing a tremendous decrease in the efficiency of the protocol, as demonstrated by the mixed reality simulation conducted by Quinlan, et al [2].…”