Intent Sharing in Cooperative Maneuvering: Theory and Experimental Evaluation

Intent sharing is a class of cooperation enabled by vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, which allows for information exchange between road users about their intended future behaviors. In this paper, we propose a generalized representation of vehicles’ motion intent from a dynamical systems viewpoint. Based on this, we extend the framework of conflict analysis such that intent information can be interpreted in real time to assist the decision-making of intent-receiving vehicles and ensure conflict-free maneuvers. We create intent messages using commercially available V2X radios, and demonstrate experimentally the benefits of sharing intent in cooperative maneuvering. Experiments are performed on a test track where intent-based on-board decision assistance is provided to human drivers in merge scenarios. The experimental results reveal significant benefits of intent sharing in enhancing vehicle safety and time efficiency. Furthermore, we test intent messages on public roads and evaluate the performance in terms of packet delivery ratio. The data collected on public highways are fed into numerical simulations to investigate the effects of intent transmission conditions on conflict resolution.