Ultra wide band-based control of emulated autonomous vehicles for collision avoidance in a four-way intersection

Abstract

Traditional crossroads use traffic lights, but may cause delays due to its stop and wait process. Moreover, autonomous vehicles are being made, although it is not yet mass-produced. This work presents a design and implementation of an agile system that communicates and coordinates autonomous vehicles entering the intersection by adjusting their speeds and maneuvers to avoid collisions, allowing them to weave and pass through intersection traffic and avoiding them to completely stop, leading to an increase in the throughput of the intersection, and therefore reducing congestion. A centralized computer implements agile communication and controls the system based on a first-come-first-served policy. The hardware implementation emulates four prototype vehicles modeled as radio-controlled cars integrated with an ultra wide band (UWB) localization technology. The cars were used to simulate the passage without collision in a typical four-way intersection. Pozyx UWB modules were chosen for tracking the vehicles due to its compatibility with Arduino as well as its numerous other functionalities and accuracy relative to other indoor-positioning systems. Results show that Pozyx could track autonomous vehicles. The study resulted in a system that can control self-driving cars through the intersection with key measures. Moreover, the characterization of Pozyx in this hardware implementation was observed.