Exploiting Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications for Enhanced Situational Awareness

Situational awareness (i.e., perception of ones environment with respect to time and space) is a primary tenet for safe and robust operation of autonomous vehicles. The current SA generated for operation of an autonomous vehicle is limited to its immediate surrounding, thus limiting its utility in global optimization tasks, such as optimal routing, hazard warnings, etc. Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is a process where basic safety messages (BSMs) are exchanged amongst nearby vehicles for preventing potential collisions. The messages are broad-casted via dedicated short-range radio communication devices and typically contain the vehicle's speed, heading and braking status. In this paper, we explore methodologies for improving Situational awareness by including additional sensor information in V2V communications. In particular, by incorporating Radar information, we explore the particular problem of creating an occupancy grid that can technically span hundreds of meters to aid numerous autonomous driving and active safety tasks. The presented approach is illustrated via a simulated autonomous highway driving scenario.