DEVELOPMENT OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE MOTION PLANNING AND CONTROL ALGORITHM WITH D* PLANNER AND MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL IN A DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

The research in this report incorporates the improvement in the autonomous driving capability of self-driving cars in a dynamic environment. Global and local path planning are implemented using the D* path planning algorithm with a combined Cubic B-Spline trajectory generator, which generates an optimal obstacle free trajectory for the vehicle to follow and avoid collision. Model Predictive Control (MPC) is used for the longitudinal and the lateral control of the vehicle. The presented motion planning and control algorithm is tested using Model-In-the-Loop (MIL) method with the help of MATLAB® Driving Scenario Designer and Unreal Engine® Simulator by Epic Games®. Different traffic scenarios are built, and a camera sensor is configured to simulate the sensory data and feed it to the controller for further processing and vehicle motion planning. Simulation results of vehicle motion control with global and local path planning for dynamic obstacle avoidance are presented. The simulation results show that an autonomous vehicle follows a commanded velocity when the relative distance between the ego vehicle and an obstacle is greater than a calculated safe distance. When the relative distance is close to the safe distance, the ego vehicle maintains the headway. When an obstacle is detected by the ego vehicle and the ego vehicle wants to pass the obstacle, the ego vehicle performs obstacle avoidance maneuver by tracking desired lateral positions.