A Long-Duration Autonomy Approach to Connected and Automated Vehicles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a long-duration autonomy control method for connected and automated vehicles, focusing on traffic bottlenecks, using optimal control and control barrier functions to ensure safety, efficiency, and energy savings.

Contribution

It presents a novel reactive control framework combining high order control barrier functions with optimal control for CAVs at complex traffic scenarios.

Findings

Demonstrates safety guarantees through HOCBFs

Shows improved performance over traditional optimal control methods

Validates approach via simulation in traffic bottleneck scenarios

Abstract

In this article, we present a long-duration autonomy approach for the control of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) operating in a transportation network. In particular, we focus on the performance of CAVs at traffic bottlenecks, including roundabouts, merging roadways, and intersections. We take a principled approach based on optimal control, and derive a reactive controller with guarantees on safety, performance, and energy efficiency. We guarantee safety through high order control barrier functions (HOCBFs), which we ``lift'' to first order CBFs using time-optimal motion primitives. This yields a set of first-order CBFs that are compatible with the control bounds. We demonstrate the performance of our approach in simulation and compare it to an optimal control-based approach.