Vehicle path planning in various driving situations based on the elastic band theory for highway collision avoidance

This paper presents an emergency path generation method which could be applied in various driving situations, such as on a straight or a curved road, and in the lane-change and lane-departure scenarios which are the most likely from a traffic viewpoint. It is based on the artificial potential approach and the elastic band theory. The assessment of the emergency path is based on the dynamic performances; the yaw rate and the lateral acceleration of the host vehicle are chosen in this paper. In order to make evasion manoeuvres steadier, a guide potential attached at the front of the obstacle vehicle and a guide potential attached at the rear of the obstacle vehicle are built to affect the moving vehicles in such a way that it encourages the host vehicle to change lane appropriately. Meanwhile, a hazard map of the road environment including the borders and the obstacle vehicles is generated. Thus the forces acting on the corresponding nodes of an elastic band should be zero because of the equilibrium condition; the trajectory with a low hazard is calculated via a numerical method. The simulation results show that the approach is acceptable and leads to a successful collision avoidance manoeuvre in various driving situations.