Threat assessment design for driver assistance system at intersections

This paper considers the decision-making problem for a human-driven vehicle crossing a road intersection in the presence of other, potentially errant, drivers. Our approach relies on a novel threat assessment module, which combines an intention predictor based on support vector machines with an efficient threat assessor using rapidly-exploring random trees. This module warns the host driver with the computed threat level and the corresponding best “escape maneuver” through the intersection, if the threat is sufficiently large. Through experimental results with small autonomous and human-driven vehicles, we demonstrate that this threat assessment module can be used in real-time to minimize the risk of collision.