An improved automated braking system for rear-end collisions: A study based on a driving simulator experiment

Abstract

Introduction: To assist drivers in avoiding rear-end collisions, many early warning systems have been developed up to date. Autonomous braking technology is also used as the last defense to ensure driver’s safety. Method: By taking the accuracy and timeliness of automatic system control into account, this paper proposes a rear-end Real-Time Autonomous Emergency Braking (RTAEB) system. The system inserts brake intervention based on drivers’ real-time conflict identification and collision avoidance performance. A driving simulator-based experiment under different traffic conditions and deceleration scenarios were conducted to test the different thresholds to trigger intervention and the intervention outcomes. The system effectiveness is verified by four evaluation indexes, including collision avoidance rate, accuracy rate, sensitivity rate, and precision rate. Results: The results showed that the system could help avoid all collision events successfully and enlarge the final headway distance, and a TTC threshold of 1.5 s and a maximum deceleration threshold of −7.5 m/s2 could achieve the best collision avoidance effect. The paper demonstrates the situations that are more inclined to trigger the RTAEB (i.e., a sudden brake of the leading vehicle and a small car-following distance). Moreover, the study shows that driver characteristics (i.e., gender and profession) have no significant association with system trigger. Practical Applications: The study suggests that development of collision avoidance systems design should pay attention to both the real-time traffic situation and drivers’ collision avoidance capability under the present situation.