Automatic driving in stop and go traffic

This paper presents the vision technique for driving a vehicle in dense traffic at slow speeds. In urban areas, drivers can spend large amounts of time in bumper to bumper traffic and their constant attention is needed for what seems to be a very primitive task: start and stop to follow the previous vehicle. Furthermore, this task is not performed in the most efficient way with regards to traffic flow and safety. A technique has been developed at INRIA to automate the driving in these situations at speeds up to 10 km/h (higher speeds can be achieved but it seems to be safer to require the driver to take over the control at this speed). The technique is based on a linear camera and stroboscopic infra-red lighting of the preceeding car. After adequate processing, the controller acts on the acceleration, on brakes and on steering. Experiments are now being conducted.