A Long-Duration Autonomy Approach to Connected and Automated Vehicles

A Long-Duration Autonomy Approach to Connected and Automated V ehicles Logan E. Beaver, Member, IEEE Abstract --In this article, we present a long-duration autonomy approach for the control of connected and automated vehicles (CA Vs) operating in a transportation network. In particular, we focus on the performance of CA Vs at traffic bottlenecks, including roundabouts, merging roadways, and intersections. We take a principled approach based on optimal control, and derive a reactive controller with guarantees on safety, performance, and energy efficiency. We guarantee safety through high order control barrier functions (HOCBFs), which we "lift" to first order CBFs using time-optimal motion primitives. We demonstrate the performance of our approach in simulation and compare it to an optimal control-based approach. Index T erms --autonomous systems, connected vehicles, long-duration autonomy, barrier functions I. I NTRODUCTION C ONNECTED and automated vehicles (CA Vs) continue to proliferate transportation networks. As a result, it is critical for us to develop control algorithms that are computationally efficient, provably safe, and produce energy-efficient trajectories.