AUTONOMOUS INTELLIGENT CRUISE CONTROL

Vehicle following and its effects on traffic flow has been an active a rea of research. Human driving involves reaction times, delays, and hu man errors that affect traffic flow adversely. One way to eliminate hu man errors and delays in vehicle following is to replace the human dri ver with a computer control system and sensors. The purpose of this pa per is to develop an autonomous intelligent cruise control (AICC) syst em for automatic vehicle following, examine its effect on traffic flow , and compare its performance with that of the human driver models. Th e AICC system developed is not cooperative; i.e., it does not exchange information with other vehicles and yet is not susceptible to oscilla tions and ''slinky'' effects. The elimination of the ''slinky'' effect is achieved by using a safety distance separation rule that is propor tional to the vehicle velocity (constant time headway) and by designin g the control system appropriately. The performance of the AICC system is found to be superior to that of the human driver models considered . It has a faster and better transient response that leads to a much s moother and faster traffic flow. Computer simulations are used to stud y the performance of the proposed AICC system and analyze vehicle foll owing in a single lane, without passing, under manual and automatic co ntrol, In addition, several emergency situations that include emergenc y stopping and cut-in cases were simulated. The simulation results dem onstrate the effectiveness of the AICC system and its potentially bene ficial effects on traffic flow.