Predictive cruise control with autonomous overtaking

This paper studies the problem of optimally controlling an autonomous vehicle, to safely overtake a slow-moving leading vehicle. The problem is formulated to minimize deviation from a reference velocity and position trajectory, while keeping the vehicle on the road and avoiding collision with surrounding vehicles. We show that the optimization problem can be formulated as a convex program, by providing convex modeling steps that include change of reference frame, change of variables, sampling in relative longitudinal distance, convex relaxation and linearization. A case study is provided showing overtaking scenarios in proximity of an oncoming vehicle, and a vehicle driving on an adjacent lane and in the same direction as the leading vehicle.