Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
This paper extends previous work in the field of automatic vehicle merging and presents a comprehensive solution to the merging control problem. From a control viewpoint automatic merging of two streams of vehicles leads to a complex non-linear, combined continuous/discrete dynamic system of time depending order and structure. The design of a comprehensive merging strategy is carried out through a heuristic approach, based on a detailed analysis of the functional behaviour of the system. Safety requirements together with a consideration of the specifics of the merging process lead to a coupled two-layer control scheme. The theoretical background for the design approach is provided and the performance of the automatic merging control system is discussed based on computer simulations.
Schmidt et al. (Sat,) studied this question.