Motion Planning for Multiple

Autonomous Vehicles

Semi-Autonomous
Intelligent Transportation
Rahul
System
Kala

Presentation of paper: R. Kala, K. Warwick (2015) Intelligent

Transportation System with Diverse Semi-Autonomous Vehicles,
International Journal of Computational Intelligent Systems, 8(5):
School of Systems, Engineering, University of
April, 2013
886-899.

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Key Contributions
The approach presents an integrated study of
an intelligent transportation system covering all
the various concepts which are separately
studied in the literature.
The study proposes architecture of the
transportation systems of the future covering
both decentralized vehicle control and a
centralized management control.
The approach is designed for diverse semiautonomous vehicles operating in a scalable
environment, which is the likely future of the
transportation system.
The approach is a positive step towards

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Assumption
All semi-autonomous vehicles, or all can
communicate
All vehicles can be tracked
There might still be some human driven
vehicles
Vehicles have very diverse speeds
Key idea
Explore all the possibilities with such an
assumption
Enable vehicles cooperatively reach their
destination
in the
best Vehicles
way
Motion
Planning for Multiple
Autonomous
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Proposed Intelligent
Transportation System
Architecture
Lane
Booking
Booking
Specifications

Booked?
Speed Lane
Module

Speed
Limit

Speed of vehicles
at lanes
Traffic
Central Information Info.
Scenario
System
Specification
Map/Initial
conditions

Road
Booking
Booked?
Vehicle Route
Planning
Lane change, Follow,
Stop/Start, Turn
Vehicle
Vehicle Motion
Control
Planning

Traffic at
roads

Signal
state
Traffic Signal
Position/
Module
Speed

Motion Planning for Multiple Autonomous Vehicles

Vehicle
Monitoring

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Traffic Lightning System

Since all vehicles are tracked, lights can change as soon
as all vehicles at a particular side are clear

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Traffic Lighting System

2
5

1
4

Order of change of traffic lights. Numbers denote the

order of appearance in the crossing scenario for the
present vehicles.
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Traffic Lighting System

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Traffic Lighting System

700
600

Proposed
System

500
400
Average
300 time of traversal

Moving
average
(Proposed
System)

200
System
with
definite
time of
change

100
0
Number of Vehicles

Varying traffic density

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Traffic Lighting System

600
500
400
300
Average Time of Traversal
200
100
0
Number of Vehicles

Proposed
System
Moving
average
(Proposed
System)
System with
definite
time of
change
Moving
average
(System
with
definite
time of
change)

Varying traffic density with traffic from one

side blocked
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Traffic Lighting System

900
800
700
600
500
Average 400
time of traversal
300
200
100
0

Proposed
System
System with
definite
time of
change
System with
cyclic
changes
time_th

Varying maximum time per light change for

dense traffic
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Traffic Lighting System

600

ProposedSys
tem
Moving
average
(ProposedSy
stem)
System with
definite time
of change
Moving
average
(System with
definite time
of change)

500
400
300
Average Traversal Time
200
100
0
time_th

Varying maximum time per light change for

light traffic
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Traffic Lightning System Design Choice

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Speed Lane
Since the vehicles are tracked and under
communication, speed distribution between
lanes can be made dynamic
Assumption: Speeds uniformly distributed in
the speed band (between slowest and fastest
current vehicle on the road)
Concept 1: Divide the speed band by weights
and distribute between the lanes
Concept 2: Higher speed vehicle can jump to
lower speed lane (for overtaking) but not vice
versa
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Speed Lanes

Speeds
Highest speed
capability vehicle

Weighted
speed division
Speed limit of
individual
lanes

Motion Planning for Multiple Autonomous Vehicles

Speed Band
(all other vehicles assumed to
be uniformly distributed in
this band)

Lowest speed
capability vehicle

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Speed Lanes
Comparisons with a system with no speed
lane any vehicle can go anywhere
700
600
500
400
300
200
Average
100 traversal time

With
speed
lanes

0
w

Comparisons for densely occupied

scenario

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Speed Lanes
Speed lanes are a bad idea when traffic density is low, all
diverse vehicles having access to both lanes can quickly crisscross and overtake, not having to follow a vehicle as the other
lane is reserved
for high speed vehicles only
600
500
400
300

With
speed
lanes
Without
speed
lanes

200
Average 100
traversal time
0
w

Comparisons for lightly occupied scenario

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Speed Lanes
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
Average200
traversal time
100
0

With
dynamic
speed lanes
With fixed
speed lanes

Speed Upper Bound

Comparisons by increasing diversity test

the algorithm adaptability
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Speed Lanes
500
With
dynamic
speed
lanes

400
300
200
100 traversal time
Average

With fixed
speed
lanes

0
Speed Lower Bound

Comparisons by increasing diversity test

the algorithm adaptability
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Route Planning
How to choose between a shorter/congested
route or a longer/not congested route?
Use a standard graph search on road network
graph
Re-plan at every crossing to cope with
changing traffic
Cost function: length + penalty x traffic
density
For near roads use Current traffic density
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For further roads use predicted traffic density

Motion Planning for Multiple Autonomous Vehicles

Rout Planning

Shorter Diversion
Entry
Point
of
vehicle
s

Straight Road
Longer Diversion

Exit
Point
of
vehicle
s

Vehicles first use straight road, on

congestion of which shorter diversion is
also used, on congestion of which, longer
Motion Planning for Multiple Autonomous Vehicles
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diversion is also used.

Route Planning
380
360
340
320
300
280
Average
260traversal time
240

Proposed
system
Distance
minimizati
on

Comparisons with distance minimization

graph search (only straight road used)
by varying
penalty
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Autonomous Vehicles
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Route Planning
Lower penalty = Distance minimization graph
search
Lower penalty = Search which attempts to
equate density on all roads
For the considered map:
Lower penalty makes straight road congested,
poor performance
Higher penalty encourages vehicles to take
diversions even though main road may not be
too congested, poor performance
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Booking
Reserve a road or lane for privileged set of
vehicles
Key issue: How many vehicles to be booked?

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Booking

Diversion for all

other vehicles

Booked road
(only for privileged/booked
vehicles
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Booking
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
Average traversal time
100
0

Nonbooked
vehicles
Booked
vehicles

Percent of vehicles booked

Road Booking
Booking more vehicles makes it take longer
for the booked vehicles and shorter for
the other vehicles
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Booking
300

200

Nonbooked
vehicles

150

Booked
vehicles

250

All vehicles
booked

100
Average traversal time
50

No vehicle
booked

0
Percent booked vehicles

Lane Booking
Booking more vehicles makes it take longer
for the booked vehicles and shorter for
Motion Planning for Multiplethe
Autonomous
Vehicles
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other
vehicles

 Acknowledgements:
Commonwealth Scholarship
Commission in the United Kingdom
British Council

Thank You
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