Research on Active Obstacle Avoidance of Intelligent Vehicles Based on Improved Artificial Potential Field Method

In the study of autonomous obstacle avoidance of intelligent vehicles, the traditional artificial potential field method has the problem that the vehicle may fall into the local minima and lead to obstacle avoidance failure. Therefore, this paper improves the traditional potential field function. Based on the vehicle dynamics model, a strategy of jumping out of local minima based on smaller steering angles is proposed. By finding a smaller steering angle and setting a suitable jump out step length, the intelligent vehicle is enabled to jump out of the local minima. Simulation experiments by MATLAB show that the improved method can jump out of the local minima. By comparing the planned trajectories of the traditional method and the improved method in static and dynamic obstacles situations, the trajectory planned by the improved method is smooth and the curvature is smaller. The planned trajectory is tracked by the Carsim platform, and the test results show that the improved method reduces the front steering wheel angle while the intelligent vehicle satisfies the vehicle dynamics constraints during active obstacle avoidance, which verifies the stability and rationality of the improved method.