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Collision warning/collision avoidance (CW/CA) systems must be designed to work seamlessly with a human driver, providing warning or control actions when the driver's response (or lack of) is deemed inappropriate. The effectiveness of CW/CA systems working with a human driver needs to be evaluated thoroughly because of legal/liability and other (e.g. traffic flow) concerns. CW/CA systems tuned only under open-loop manoeuvres were frequently found to work unsatisfactorily with human-in-the-loop. However, tuning CW/CA systems with human drivers co-existing is slow and non-repeatable. Driver models, if constructed and used properly, can capture human/control interactions and accelerate the CW/CA development process. Design and evaluation methods for CW/CA algorithms can be categorised into three approaches, scenario-based, performance-based and human-centred. The strength and weakness of these approaches were discussed in this paper and a humanised errable driver model was introduced to improve the developing process. The errable driver model used in this paper is a model that emulates human driver's functions and can generate both nominal (error-free) and devious (with error) behaviours. The car-following data used for developing and validating the model were obtained from a large-scale naturalistic driving database. Three error-inducing behaviours were introduced: human perceptual limitation, time delay and distraction. By including these error-inducing behaviours, rear-end collisions with a lead vehicle were found to occur at a probability similar to traffic accident statistics in the USA. This driver model is then used to evaluate the performance of several existing CW/CA algorithms. Finally, a new CW/CA algorithm was developed based on this errable driver model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While digital map has been applied to many advanced driver assistance system applications, one critical attribute - road/lane curvature—is not available in the existing digital maps. Curvature derivation using splines is a well-known method in the computer graphics modelling community; however, it was also found that the direct application of the spline method is often not appropriate for real-time safety applications due to the resultant discontinuities in the curvature estimates and the lack of robustness against map data errors [CAMP, Enhanced digital mapping project final report, United States Department of Transportation, Washington, DC, 2004]. This paper presents a method to reconstruct road curvature attributes in real time using digital map data based on the proposed circle centre search and circle selection algorithms. Simulation and experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method can deliver curvature estimates that meet the desired accuracy. The method was also applied to the curve over-speed warning system in an on-going research project: Vehicle Infrastructure Integration—California. Some preliminary experimental results are also presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, vehicle stability control and fuel economy for a 4-wheel-drive hybrid vehicle are investigated. The integrated controller is designed within three layers. The first layer determines the total yaw moment and total lateral force made by using an optimal controller method to follow the desired dynamic behaviour of a vehicle. The second layer determines optimum tyre force distribution in order to optimise tyre usage and find out how the tyres should share longitudinal and lateral forces to achieve a target vehicle response under the assumption that all four wheels can be independently steered, driven, and braked. In the third layer, the active steering, wheel slip, and electrical motor torque controllers are designed. In the front axle, internal combustion engine (ICE) is coupled to an electric motor (EM). The control strategy has to determine the power distribution between ICE and EM to minimise fuel consumption and allowing the vehicle to be charge sustaining. Finally, simulations performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment show that the proposed structure could enhance the vehicle stability and fuel economy in different manoeuvres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes work which has greatly improved our understanding of the processes by which rail corrugation typically develops on North American Transit systems. Several types of corrugation were identified from observations and measurements in the field. A new mechanism for corrugation formation is proposed for the most common type of corrugation observed, and a mathematical model has accordingly been developed which combines both low frequency and high frequency behaviour of the vehicle/track system. The mathematical model itself, plus results from it and from measurements are discussed here. Novel recommendations for corrugation mitigation are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]