Evaluation of Virtual Traffic Situations for Testing Automated Driving Functions based on Multidimensional Criticality Analysis

The development and validation of automated driving functions requires the simulation of numerous traffic situations. The introduction of the scenario-based approach emphasizes the importance of simulation scenarios. For an effective evaluation of the simulation scenarios, a criticality evaluation with respect to the behavior of the automated driving function is necessary. Therefore, this work presents a multidimensional criticality analysis for the evaluation of traffic situations. The methodology summarizes published criticality metrics and assesses the overall criticality of the situation. First, individual metrics are calculated for the ego-vehicle. Subsequently, potential traffic conflicts are evaluated and summarized with appropriate relational criticality metrics. Lastly, the criticalities of further objects are computed with the identical method and included in the overall criticality analysis. A proof of concept was implemented in accordance with the methodology. The results are presented and discussed including limitations of the methodology.