A New Adaptive Cruise Control Considering Crash Avoidance for Intelligent Vehicle

To enhance adaptive cruise control (ACC) in avoiding crashes with arbitrary cut-in vehicles from different lanes, a hierarchical ACC considering crash avoidance is proposed in this article. A new variable time to collision (TTC) step based on elliptical vehicle geometry is proposed to estimate the TTC with vehicles from different directions. The hierarchical structure involves an upper planner and a lower dynamic controller. A switching mechanism based on TTC is designed to select the upper planner mode to avoid collision and maintain tracking ability. Moreover, the lower dynamics controller applies a new sliding mode control to track the desired acceleration and utilize the maximal longitudinal tire force. A driver-in-the-loop platform is established, and four scenarios are designed to verify both the effectiveness and real-time performance. The results indicate that the new structure tracks the desired acceleration and avoids crashing the vehicle from different directions while ensuring vehicle stability.