Stable and Safe Automated Driving Using 3-D Road Geometric Features

Vehicular safety depends on road geometry and surface conditions that provide tire-terrain traction. Roads are constructed with 3-D features consisting of super-elevation, grade, horizontal profile. A driving automaton that is aware of these parameters and surface friction can make better driving decisions at optimal speeds that maintain vehicular stability. Estimation of tire-terrain friction requires a continuous 3-D surface. In order to satisfy these requirements, we extend the Open Curved Regular Grid (OpenCRG) format with a C
²
continuous surface that is dynamically generated at tire-terrain contact patches. We show that these estimates empower driving automatons to stably navigate curved elevated roads with super-elevated turns. We also show that sharing friction estimates using Basic Safety Messages (BSM) of Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) can enable safety of following vehicles in control loss situations.