Socially-Aware Autonomous Driving: Inferring Yielding Intentions for Safer Interactions

--Since the emergence of autonomous driving technology, it has advanced rapidly over the past decade. It is becoming increasingly likely that autonomous vehicles (A Vs) would soon coexist with human-driven vehicles (HVs) on the roads. Currently, safety and reliable decision-making remain significant challenges, particularly when A Vs are navigating lane changes and interacting with surrounding HVs. Therefore, precise estimation of the intentions of surrounding HVs can assist A Vs in making more reliable and safe lane change decision-making. This involves not only understanding their current behaviors but also predicting their future motions without any direct communication. However, distinguishing between the passing and yielding intentions of surrounding HVs still remains ambiguous. T o address the challenge, we propose a social intention estimation algorithm rooted in Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), coupled with a decision-making framework employing Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms. T o evaluate the method's performance, the proposed framework can be tested and applied in a lane-changing scenario within a simulated environment. Furthermore, the experiment results demonstrate how our approach enhances the ability of A Vs to navigate lane changes safely and efficiently on roads. UTONOMOUS driving decision-making is a critical component of autonomous driving systems, aiming to make reasonable and safe driving decisions based on environmental perception [1]. The decision-making process not only needs to consider the kinematic and dynamic constraints of the vehicle but also needs to comply with traffic rules, evaluate potential risks, and coexist safely with other traffic participants in complex driving scenarios, such as executing lane changes on highways and navigating intersections, as illustrated in Figure 1. Executing lane changes on the highway remains a formidable challenge for A Vs in the real world, primarily due to environmental complexity and uncertainty. Jing Wang, Y an Jin are with the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom (email: jwang61@qub.ac.uk, y.jin@qub.ac.uk)