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Development and Evaluation of Path and Speed Profile Planning and Tracking Control for an Autonomous Shuttle Using a Realistic, Virtual Simulation Environment

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Abstract

This paper is motivated by the autonomous shuttle service that operates in the geo-fenced Linden Residential Area of Columbus, Ohio that links residents to the two nearby locations of opportunity of a community center and a transit hub. This paper focuses on path planning and path tracking of an autonomous shuttle which are its most fundamental autonomous driving functions. Path planning is based on improving efficiency of computation and smoothness of path. Velocity planning is based on obeying speed limits, limiting longitudinal acceleration along straight segments and lateral acceleration during curved segments for improved ride comfort of the passengers. Path tracking control focuses on robust implementation that keeps accuracy of path following in the presence of uncertainties and variations in speed. A realistic, 3D virtual simulation environment of the actual geo-fenced urban area used here is built for evaluating and developing the path planning and path tracking functions of this paper. The same environment can also be used for developing and evaluating other autonomous driving functions with the capability of generating complicated traffic scenarios. The path tacking control results are compared with those of the pure pursuit path tracking algorithm of the open source and publicly available Autoware autonomous driving interface for the Robot Operating System.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Smart Campus organization of the Ohio State University and Smart Columbus for partial support of the work presented here. The authors would also want to thank Nvidia for donating Nvidia Drive and Nvidia Titan Pascal GPUs to our lab.

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Smart Campus organization of the Ohio State University and Smart Columbus for partial support of the work presented here through the Ohio State University cost share part of the Smart Columbus project (DOT Smart City Challenge). The authors would also want to thank Nvidia for donating Nvidia Drive and Nvidia Titan Pascal GPUs to our lab.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Automated Driving Lab, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43212, USA

    Xinchen Li, Sheng Zhu, Bilin Aksun-Guvenc & Levent Guvenc

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  1. Xinchen Li
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  3. Bilin Aksun-Guvenc
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  4. Levent Guvenc
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Contributions

This paper has four authors and their names and contributions to the paper are: Xinchen Li (modeling of the simulation environment, path smoothing, path and velocity profiling, simulations and conclusions), Dr. Sheng Zhu (robust parameter space path tracking controller design, simulations, contribution to modeling, conclusions), Prof. Bilin Aksun-Guvenc (planning and directing the research on robust parameter space path tracking control, simulation modeling, simulation study and reviewing and editing the whole paper; editing and helping with the revisions) and Prof. Levent Guvenc (planning and directing the research on simulation environment modeling, path smoothing, path and velocity planning, simulations and reviewing and editing the whole paper; editing and helping with the revisions).

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Correspondence to Xinchen Li.

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Li, X., Zhu, S., Aksun-Guvenc, B. et al. Development and Evaluation of Path and Speed Profile Planning and Tracking Control for an Autonomous Shuttle Using a Realistic, Virtual Simulation Environment. J Intell Robot Syst 101, 42 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01316-2

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