Tools for Safety Analysis of Vehicle Automation Systems

As convenience and safety become difficult to maintain on today's increasingly overcrowded highways, vehicle automation systems have gained attention as a possible source of driver performance enhancement. The functionality of these systems ranges from the provision of driver advisory information to the complete control of the lateral and longitudinal motion of each vehicle. Two safety analysis tools are presented here which help compare the safety merits of potential vehicle designs that incorporate various automation devices. The vehicle following analysis tool abstracts two vehicles traveling at constant speed and spacing into seven random variables with associated probability distributions. The tool kinematically derives a probability distribution for the worst case collision velocity caused by the front vehicle suddenly applying full brakes. From this distribution, measures of collision frequency and severity can be derived and used to compare various vehicle automation systems. The general maneuver analysis tool extends the first tool to analyze two vehicles involved in a maneuver in which the speeds and relative spacing of the vehicles varies according to a maneuver trajectory. Examples are given of tool usage and types of safety studies which the tools facilitate.