Advanced POD-Based Performance Evaluation of Classifiers Applied to Human Driver Lane Changing Prediction

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modified probability of detection (POD) method to evaluate machine learning classifiers for predicting human driver lane changes, accounting for process parameters like time remaining to lane change.

Contribution

It develops a POD-based evaluation approach that considers process parameters, improving reliability over standard methods in driver behavior prediction models.

Findings

The proposed POD method offers more reliable performance assessment.

It simplifies evaluation while enhancing accuracy.

Compared to standard approaches, it provides a conservative and robust evaluation.

Abstract

Machine learning (ML) classifiers serve as essential tools facilitating classification and prediction across various domains. The performance of these algorithms should be known to ensure their reliable application. In certain fields, receiver operating characteristic and precision-recall curves are frequently employed to assess machine learning algorithms without accounting for the impact of process parameters. However, it may be essential to evaluate the performance of these algorithms in relation to such parameters. As a performance evaluation metric capable of considering the effects of process parameters, this paper uses a modified probability of detection (POD) approach to assess the reliability of ML-based algorithms. As an example, the POD-based approach is employed to assess ML models used for predicting the lane changing behavior of a vehicle driver. The time remaining to the predicted (and therefore unknown) lane changing event is considered as process parameter. The hit/miss approach to POD is taken here and modified by considering the probability of lane changing derived from ML algorithms at each time step, and obtaining the final result of the analysis accordingly. This improves the reliability of results compared to the standard hit/miss approach, which considers the outcome of the classifiers as either 0 or 1, while also simplifying evaluation compared to the \^a versus a approach. Performance evaluation results of the proposed approach are compared with those obtained with the standard hit/miss approach and a pre-developed \^a versus a approach to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The comparison shows that this method provides an averaging conservative behavior with the advantage of enhancing the reliability of the hit/miss approach to POD while retaining its simplicity.