Feasibility study on the implementation of Cubic Motion curve for vehicle trajectory planning

Abstract

Cubic Motion curve has been introduced to integrate the information of path and motion. Since this is a new approach, a feasibility study has been carried out to analyse the practicality of Cubic Motion curves used as the input for the study of vehicle dynamic response. This study requires the development of three modules, namely, the Cubic Motion module, the vehicle dynamic model, the driver model (VDM-DM) module, and, lastly, the integrated module. The Cubic Motion module will generate Cubic Motion curve. The VDM-DM module applies the 2 DOF bicycle model and links it with Renski's driver model. Finally, an integrated module will merge both previous modules as a complete system for trajectory and vehicle response as the output. The double lane change and the Slalom test were the case studies used to develop an understanding of the applicability of the three types of Cubic Motion input, namely, natural, adjusted tangent, and additional vertex cubic motion. The finding of this study is that Cubic Motion is in fact a compact representation of curve with motion attributes and can be directly associated with a vehicle dynamic response study.