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The concept of stimuli-induced equilibrium point (SIEP) has been recently introduced to characterize the psychological interaction of a ramp driver with its putative leader and follower on the expressway during a merging maneuver. It enables the computation of the reference target gap speed and position for the on-ramp merging vehicle based on current traffic conditions and ramp vehicle response. The SIEP has been shown to improve the performance of existing automatic ramp merging control strategies while increasing the level of safety during the merging maneuver. The performance and advantages of the SIEP-based approach have been assessed only through numerical simulations. In this paper, we conducted a comprehensive experimental evaluation of the performance and safety of this SIEP-based approach to ramp merging control using a lab-based test-bed. We employed a novel Pc metric, which is based on the concept of probability of collision, to perform a systematic validation of the SIEP safety. Such a metric serves as a standardized methodology to quantitatively compare the SIEP-based approach with those in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose the novel concept of stimuli-induced equilibrium point to synthesize the speed and position references for automatic on-ramp merging systems. Based on the psychological field theory, the intensity of the stimuli that act upon a driver between two vehicles in a three-vehicle platooning configuration is mathematically modeled to calculate a point at which the stimuli resultant becomes zero. This approach intends to mimic drivers’ decision process when certain distance separation with respect to the leader and follower vehicles is attained for safety. The location of this point is continuously updated according to the speed of the middle vehicle and the current traffic scenario. Such stimuli-induced equilibrium point has shown to improve the performance of existing automatic merging control schemes while increasing safety conditions by providing enough reaction time for drivers to avoid an eventual collision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]