Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ZEBANG SHEN
R&D Center, Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Beijing, China
BINBIN YONG
An associate professor and masters supervisor in the
School of Information Science and Engineering, Lanzhou
University, China
RUI ZHAO
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou
University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
PENG ZHI
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou
University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
Elsevier
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Copyright © 2022 Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press. Published by
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under
copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).
Notices
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Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge
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ISBN: 978-0-323-99448-4
Contributors ix
v
vi Contents
Index 327
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Contributors
Yunfei Che
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Xi’an, China
Gang Huang
SATG, Intel, Shanghai, China
Ming Lei
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Xiaowei Xu
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Zebang Shen
R&D Center, Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Beijing, China
Yu Sun
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Jinqiang Wang
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Wei Wang
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Binbin Yong
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Tingting Yu
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Rui Zhao
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Peng Zhi
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
Qingguo Zhou
School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu,
China
ix
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CHAPTER 1
Contents
1.1 What are unmanned vehicles? 2
1.1.1 Classification standards for unmanned vehicles 2
1.1.2 How difficult is the implementation of unmanned vehicles? 5
1.2 Why do we need unmanned vehicles? 7
1.2.1 Improvement of road traffic safety 7
1.2.2 Alleviation of urban traffic congestion 8
1.2.3 Improvement of travel efficiency 8
1.2.4 Lowering the threshold for drivers 9
1.3 Basic framework of the unmanned vehicle system 9
1.3.1 Environmental perception 10
1.3.2 Localization 13
1.3.3 Mission planning 14
1.3.4 Behavior planning 16
1.3.5 Motion planning 17
1.3.6 Control system 18
1.3.7 Summary 21
1.4 Development environment configuration 22
1.4.1 Simple environment installation 22
1.4.2 Install the robot operating system (ROS) 23
1.4.3 Install OpenCV 24
References 25
Table 1.1 Classification mechanism for unmanned vehicle systems under SAE
standards.
Steering,
acceleration, Coping
and Observation Response with
deceleration of the to intense working
Level Name control environment driving conditions
the NHTSA subdivided into L4 and L5 under the SAE standards. As the
SAE standards are mainly adopted in China, this book uses SAE standards
for the introduction. Table 1.1 presents the SAE grading standard.1
The L0 level means that the vehicle is driven by a human driver.
L1, also known as assisted driving, indicates the presence of advanced
driver assistance system (ADAS) functions, including lane departure
warning, forward collision warning, and blind spot detection warning lights
and so on. The ADAS mainly provides early warning, and it has no active
intervention functions.
L2 denotes semiautonomous driving or partially automatic driving. This
type of system already has ADAS functions for intervention assistance,
including adaptive cruise control (ACC), automatic emergency braking,
and lane keeping assist system, etc. Vehicles of this level are equipped with
functions such as autonomous acceleration on highways or autonomous
braking in emergency situations. Relative to L4 vehicles, L2 vehicles can
achieve simple automatic control operations.
From L2 to L3, the capabilities of an unmanned vehicle system undergo
a fundamental change. For vehicles with L2 classification or lower, drivers
still monitor their environment and are required to control their vehicles
directly. L3 denotes autonomous driving. An unmanned vehicle system
with an L3 classification is equipped with comprehensive intervention
assistance functions, including automatic acceleration, automatic braking,
4 Theories and Practices of Self-Driving Vehicles
systems cannot easily deal with such scenarios, given the current technology
accumulation. The complex and changing traffic conditions are one of the
biggest obstacles in realizing fully automatic driving.
Another hurdle in the implementation of unmanned vehicles is attrib-
uted to human regulations and systems. Road traffic presents the various
states in different countries and regions. For example, drivers in the UK
drive on the left side of the road, whereas drivers in China drive on the
right side. Moreover, different countries use different types and symbols in
traffic signs, and their meanings vary greatly. Therefore, no universal un-
manned vehicle system exists, and the road laws and customs in different
countries show great variations. An unmanned vehicle system also needs to
be “localized.” If it is universal, then this technology’s cost and system
complexity would be quite high and unrealistic.
Another obstacle comes from people’s “high expectations” toward
machines. Humans can tolerate their own mistakes, but their tolerance for
machine errors is extremely low. Under complex and changeable driving
scenarios, unmanned vehicles will inevitably make mistakes; for example,
sensors may not identify passersby when light conditions are unfavorable,
and HD maps may not reflect road sections that have just been completed
and opened to traffic. The fact is that the current technology and algorithms
(e.g., theory of robotics or the method of artificial intelligence) are still far
behind and are unable to meet the high expectations of the public for
unmanned vehicles.
The cost of unmanned vehicles presents another challenge. After more
than a 100 years of development, the automotive industry has reduced the
cost of traditional cars to the extreme. People can buy the cars they need
with only tens of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, unmanned vehicle
systems introduce additional costs, which cover new sensor equipment,
computing equipment, software, etc. Take the most widely used LIDAR
for unmanned vehicles as an example. The price of LIDAR that meets the
L4 classification is generally greater than US$100,000. The hardware cost of
these sensors alone far exceeds the price of most vehicles, and the reduction
of costs to achieve mass production is currently an important research topic
for the commercialization of driverless vehicles.
Naturally, driverless technology faces many obstacles, such as the urgent
need to improve driverless regulations, high R&D investment, safety issues,
perception of complex scenarios, problems in artificial intelligence tech-
nology, and mass production scale. Autonomous driving technology remains
First acquaintance with unmanned vehicles 7