Development of a dynamic object classification module and a speed braking function while free driving

Abstract

Avoiding collisions is one of the most important issues in autonomous driving systems. The main goal of this system is to detect objects with potential collision risk and determine if the brake has to be triggered in order to avoid or mitigate a collision. The two major purposes of the thesis are: first to investigate and determine the current status of the object detection system in order to further develop and implement a dynamic object classification module that can improve the emergency braking decisions when the system has to deal with dynamic objects and second, to propose a new function called “Speed braking” with which the brake system can be triggered on dynamic objects driving with lower speed by calculating a suitable deceleration in each situation. In the first part of the thesis, a description of the actual driving assistance system is presented with a more detailed explanation of the braking system. This provides a global overview of the whole application showing its complexity and limitations. Second, the actual weaken cases of the brake system are presented and consequently the module proposed to solve them. In addition, the development of the new function is explained and for both targets the results are shown. These results reveal the dramatic improvement of the brake system. There were 91 real traces supplied by three different clients where the expectation was not to brake what means that the scenario was dynamic and 62 of them were wrong. With the new algorithm 60 of those 62 traces were solved, which means an improvement of 66% in dynamic scenarios. From a general point of view, including static and dynamic situations, the solution developed represent an improvement of 39% which represents an overall success of 99% of the traces analyzed. Moreover a speed braking function depending on the speed of the vehicle driving in front of the host car is implemented, working without problems in a range of speeds 2-12 km/h while driving behind a car or a bicycle