Title :
Steering behaviors for autonomous vehicles in virtual environments
Author :
Wang, Hongling ; Kearney, Joseph K. ; Cremer, James ; Willemsen, Peter
Author_Institution :
Dept of Comput. Sci., Iowa Univ., IA, USA
Abstract :
This paper presents steering behaviors that control autonomous vehicles populating roadways in virtual urban environments. Behavior programming is facilitated by a set of representations of the environment that use convenient frames of reference in natural coordinate systems. Roadway surfaces are modeled as three-dimensional ribbons that make the local orientation of the road explicit and allow relative distances on the road to be simply computed. Roads and intersections are connected to form a ribbon network. An egocentric representation called a path melds road and intersection segments into a single, continuous ribbon that captures the vehicle´s short-term plan of navigation. A topological structure called a route supports wayfinding. We describe how the interrelated ribbon, path, and route representations are used to build multi-component behaviors that plan routes and safely navigate through traffic filled road networks - tracking lanes, shifting lanes to avoid congestion, anticipating lane changes needed to make turns dictated by the route, negotiating intersections, and respecting the rules of the road.
Keywords :
digital simulation; knowledge representation; multi-agent systems; road traffic; road vehicles; traffic engineering computing; virtual reality; 3D ribbons; autonomous agent behavior; autonomous vehicle steering behavior; behavior programming; egocentric representation; lane changes; multicomponent behaviors; ribbon network; road congestion; road intersections; road rules; roadway surface modeling; roadways; route planning; route representation; shifting lanes; topological structure; tracking lanes; traffic filled road networks; vehicle navigation; virtual environments; virtual urban environments; wayfinding; Autonomous agents; Communication system traffic control; Computer science; Dynamic programming; Mobile robots; Navigation; Remotely operated vehicles; Road vehicles; Traffic control; Virtual environment;
Conference_Titel :
Virtual Reality, 2005. Proceedings. VR 2005. IEEE
Conference_Location :
Bonn
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-8929-8
DOI :
10.1109/VR.2005.1492769