A laser scanning radar based autonomous lateral vehicle following control scheme for automated highways

This paper describes the development of an autonomous vehicle following control scheme using a laser scanning radar sensor (LIDAR) for automated highway applications. The LIDAR sensor measures the ego-vehicle's relative position with respect to its preceding vehicle, and the newly developed control scheme uses the LIDAR measurements to control the ego-vehicle to follow the lead vehicle. This research is conducted as part of the efforts on fault management of automated highway systems by California PATH. The new control scheme can be used as a back-up system for the current PATH magnetometer-based road following control scheme in case of magnetometer failure. This paper describes the LIDAR sensor, discusses key issues in the system design, and provides experimental results.