Coordination layer control and decision making for automated ground vehicles

This paper is to set up a mathematical model for coordination control and decision making for automated highway system (AHS). The main function of the coordination manager is to coordinate all the maneuvers of each vehicle in a section of AHS such that they are performed coherently, safely and efficiently. A hybrid system model is used to unify both coordination layer and regulation layer. The upper level corresponding to the coordination layer is a programming problem which is to generate discrete optimal solution. Each solution determines some parameters of a reference trajectory of a specified maneuver for lower level control system (regulation layer). It decides when and where to execute the maneuver. The regulation layer is driven by the coordination layer command to the execute lower level control (throttle and brake) comes out of a feedback loop.