Virtual Lane Boundary Generation for Human-Compatible Autonomous Driving: A Tight Coupling between Perception and Planning

Existing autonomous vehicle (AV) navigation algorithms treat lane recognition, obstacle avoidance, local path planning, and lane following as separate functional modules which result in driving behavior that is incompatible with human drivers. It is imperative to design human-compatible navigation algorithms to ensure transportation safety. We develop a new tightly-coupled perception-planning framework that combines all these functionalities to ensure human-compatibility. Using GPS-camera-lidar sensor fusion, we detect actual lane boundaries (ALBs) and propose availability-reasonability-feasibility (ARF) threefold tests to determine if we should generate virtual lane boundaries (VLBs) or follow ALBs. If needed, VLBs are generated using a dynamically adjustable multi-objective optimization framework that considers obstacle avoidance, trajectory smoothness (to satisfy vehicle kinodynamic constraints), trajectory continuity (to avoid sudden movements), GPS following quality (to execute global plan), and lane following or partial direction following (to meeting human expectation). Consequently, vehicle motion is more human compatible than existing approaches. We have implemented our algorithm and tested under open source data with satisfying results.