Self-evaluation of automated vehicles based on physics, state-of-the-art motion prediction and user experience

Abstract

Legal restrictions allow to give full control to automated vehicles for longer time periods either in restricted areas or when moving with reduced speed. Although being technically feasible for a wide range of driving scenarios, the restrictions are still in place due to the lack of a clear safety strategy. An essential step towards safety is the introduction of a self-monitoring component. In this study, a self-evaluation concept is presented which assesses a system based on a physics-defined minimum prediction horizon for state-of-the-art Deep Learning-based trajectory prediction models. Since User Experience is a key metric for car manufacturers, a further manoeuvre constraint is added to the model. We emphasize the generalizability of the presented assessment concept, however, in order to demonstrate feasibility in practical use, three specific scenarios are discussed. The results are gained with real data from publicly available driving campaigns as well as synthetically generated simulation data. Two exemplary models, a simple LSTM-based model and VectorNet, a prominent motion prediction model, are evaluated. A quantitative assessment shows a lack of training data in the public datasets for vehicle speeds > 25 m/s in order to offer safe driving above such vehicle speeds.