Safety in Connected Automated Vehicles in the Presence of Vulnerable Road Users

Automated Vehicles (AV’s) can intermingle with pedestrians and cyclists when they are driving slowly in so-called “shared spaces”. Smaller “people movers” traveling in pedestrian-dense urban areas fall in this category. However, at higher speeds on open roadways, AV’s need to be aware of the possibility of emergence of occluded pedestrians or cyclists. In such situations, the pedestrians and cyclists are referred to as Vulnerable Road Users (VRU’s). In their previous work, the research team studied AVs' energy consumption and safety when occluded pedestrians appear suddenly in front of the AV. The research team also indicated that an entropy-based metric may be used to quantify the value of the information regarding the location of the emergent pedestrian or cyclist. In a separate work the research team investigated a risk-based control strategy when the probability distribution of emergent pedestrians is known. In yet another study, the research team investigated the effect of adding a sensor to the roadside infrastructure to provide information to an oncoming vehicle, regarding a crossing pedestrian around the corner. The team labeled this the Extended Sensor. They will continue investigating and developing their "value of information" based approach to evaluate additional sensors in the infrastructure. The research team shall consider regular intersections and will initiate a study on specific configurations. The team will initiate a study on "indecisive pedestrians". These will be pedestrians who may stop or turn back while crossing the street, depending on their assesment of the approaching vehicle. The research team will assume that the vehicle will also make a decision on stopping, continuing and/or dodging the pedestrian. The research team will study a pedestrian crossing two lanes of traffic, with different direction traffic flow. The research team shall model the pedestrian dynamics for a direct two-lane crossing vs a crossing attempt with a wait stage in between the lanes.

• Record URL:
  https://ppms.cit.cmu.edu/projects/detail/451

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $44423
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552344811

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Carnegie Mellon University

  Safety21 National UTC for Promoting Safety
  Pittsburgh, PA  United States  15213

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Center Program
  ,    
• Managing Organizations:

  Carnegie Mellon University

  Safety21 National UTC for Promoting Safety
  Pittsburgh, PA  United States  15213
• Project Managers:

  Stearns, Amy

• Performing Organizations:

  The Ohio State University

  ,    
• Principal Investigators:

  Ozguner, Umit

• Start Date: 20230701
• Expected Completion Date: 20240630
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Autonomous vehicles; Behavior; Connected vehicles; Cyclists; Detectors; Pedestrians; Risk management; Sensors; Traffic safety; Vulnerable road users
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01900370
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Safety21
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552344811
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Nov 21 2023 7:02PM