Modeling, Simulation, and Control of Pedestrian Avoidance Maneuver for an Urban Electric Vehicle

In this paper, the mathematical model of an electric vehicle, as well as the control system for avoiding pedestrians in urban traffic is described. The vehicle is modeled as a continuous system consisting of several subsystems. The discrete model of several sensors and actuators, a decision system, and low-level controllers for acceleration/braking and steering systems are added. Based on this model, a pedestrian avoidance maneuver for typical speeds in city traffic is simullated. When the sensory system detects a pedestrian in the vehicle's path, the decision system calculates its trajectory. Using this information, the speed and/or direction that the vehicle must take in order to avoid the accident are estimated. These values are sent to the low-level controllers of the accelerator/brake and steering, which generate the signals to be applied to such systems to achieve the desired trajectory and speed.