Estimation of the pavement skid resistance by automated vehicle based on one-dimensional convolutional neural network

Abstract

ABSTRACT The pavement skid resistance is critical to the driving safety of a road. Automated vehicles, which have high requirements for environmental perception, are not yet commonly equipped with an estimation module that could monitor the real-time skid resistance, leading thus to instability in the steering and braking control. In this paper, we propose a data-driven approach incorporating vehicle dynamics implementing real-time pavement skid resistance estimation for autonomous driving. Feature data is collected through the automated vehicle dynamics calibration process, and the selection of features is essentially based on the use of the vehicle dynamics model. To extract the features of one-dimensional timing signals, a temporal one-dimensional convolutional neural network is proposed to improve the stability and robustness of the estimation and minimise the effect of small perturbations and noises. In addition, given the insufficient data that may be faced in practical situations, a transfer learning approach is further proposed to improve the model generalisation. Training data is collected in an autonomous driving simulation platform and the effectiveness of the method is then verified based on this platform. Satisfactory performance is demonstrated for different driving scenarios and under varied road conditions.