Shared Control for Vehicle Lane-Changing with Uncertain Driver Behaviors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a shared control framework for vehicle lane-changing that models driver behavior as a stochastic process, ensuring stable maneuvers while balancing automation effort and driver authority.

Contribution

It presents a novel Markov jump process model for driver behavior and develops controllers that guarantee string stability with minimal intervention, improving lane-changing safety and comfort.

Findings

The nominal controller reduces speed perturbations and lane-changing time.

The MIC decreases automated effort and improves comfort.

The MIC enables earlier lane changes while maintaining driver authority.

Abstract

Lane changes are common yet challenging driving maneuvers that require continuous decision-making and dynamic interaction with surrounding vehicles. Relying solely on human drivers for lane-changing can lead to traffic disturbances due to the stochastic nature of human behavior and its variability under different task demands. Such uncertainties may significantly degrade traffic string stability, which is critical for suppressing disturbance propagation and ensuring smooth merging of the lane-changing vehicles. This paper presents a human-automation shared lane-changing control framework that preserves driver authority while allowing automated assistance to achieve stable maneuvers in the presence of driver's behavioral uncertainty. Human driving behavior is modeled as a Markov jump process with transitions driven by task difficulty, providing a tractable representation of stochastic state switching. Based on this model, we first design a nominal stabilizing controller that guarantees stochastic ${L}_2$ string stability under imperfect mode estimation. To further balance performance and automated effort, we then develop a Minimal Intervention Controller (MIC) that retains acceptable stability while limiting automation. Simulations using lane-changing data from the NGSIM dataset verify that the nominal controller reduces speed perturbations and shorten lane-changing time, while the MIC further reduces automated effort and enhances comfort but with moderate stability and efficiency loss. Validations on the TGSIM dataset with SAE Level 2 vehicles show that the MIC enables earlier lane changes than Level 2 control while preserving driver authority with a slight stability compromise. These findings highlight the potential of shared control strategies to balance stability, efficiency, and driver acceptance.