Design and Implementation of Ecological Adaptive Cruise Control for Autonomous Driving with Communication to Traffic Lights

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation results of an ecological adaptive cruise controller (ECO-ACC) which exploits driving automation and connectivity. The controller avoids front collisions and traffic light violations, and is designed to reduce the energy consumption of connected automated vehicles by utilizing historical and real-time signal phase and timing data of traffic lights that adapt to the current traffic conditions. We propose an optimization-based generation of a reference velocity, and a velocity-tracking model predictive controller that avoids front collisions and violations. We present an experimental setup encompassing the real vehicle and controller in the loop, and an environment simulator in which the traffic flow and the traffic light patterns are calibrated on real-world data. We present and analyze simulation and experimental results, finding a significant potential for energy consumption reduction, even in the presence of traffic.

Real-time Ecological Velocity Planning for Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles with Partial Communication to Traffic Lights

“…In that regard, given a fixed route, finding an optimal velocity trajectory, or "Eco-driving", has been studied from the perspective of optimal control [3], [6], [7]. In the presence of signalized intersections, eco-driving yields significant energy savings by utilizing Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT) information from traffic lights [1], [3], [8].…”

“…Also, like most literature on safe and ecological driving, the algorithm was not validated through experiments in real-word traffic conditions. Therefore, in our recent paper [1], we extended our previous work to incorporate ACC into the Eco-driving controller. This work balances energy efficiency with collision avoidance and traffic signal compliance.…”

“…The combined Eco-driving and ACC controller is called Ecological Adaptive Cruise Controller (ECO-ACC). Vehicle-in-the-loop experiments were performed based on a recently introduced test setup for Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) in real-world traffic [1], [10].…”

“…While there is an extensive literature on ECO-ACC, the integration of (short-sighted, but aware of immediate traffic changes) ACC and (often long-sighted, but only aware of slowly changing traffic information) Eco-driving mostly ends up being a short-sighted energy efficient ACC. Therefore, we proposed a long-sighted energy efficient ACC in a two-level control framework [1] that enables both long-term velocity planning and short-term collision avoidance. However, we assumed persistent connectivity with all traffic signals along the route.…”

“…Most existing papers for ECO-ACC focus on a shortsighted control scheme. A two-level control framework for longsighted ECO-ACC was only recently introduced [1]. However, that work is based on a deterministic traffic signal phase and timing (SPaT) over the entire route.…”