Autonomous driving: A comparison of machine learning techniques by means of the prediction of lane change behavior

In the presented work we compare machine learning techniques in the context of lane change behavior performed by humans in a semi-naturalistic simulated environment. We evaluate different learning approaches using differing feature combinations in order to identify appropriate feature, best feature combination, and the most appropriate machine learning technique for the described task. Based on the data acquired from human drivers in the traffic simulator NISYS TRS¹, we trained a recurrent neural network, a feed forward neural network and a set of support vector machines. In the followed test drives the system was able to predict lane changes up to 1.5 sec in beforehand.