The authors are with the Industrial Computer Science Department, Instituto
de Automática Industrial (CSIC), La Poveda-Arganda del Rey, 28500 Madrid,
Spain.
There is a broad range of diverse technologies under
the generic topic of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) that
holds the answer to many of the transportation problems. In this
paper, one approach to ITS is presented. One of the most important
research topics in this field is adaptive cruise control (ACC). The
main features of this kind of controller are the adaptation of the
speed of the car to a predefined one and the keeping of a safe gap
between the controlled car and the preceding vehicle on the road.
We present an ACC controller based on fuzzy logic, which assists
the speed and distance vehicle control, offering driving strategies
and actuation over the throttle of a car. The driving information is
supplied by the car tachometer and a RTK differential GPS, and
the actuation over the car is made through an electronic interface
that simulates the electrical signal of the accelerator pedal directly
to the onboard computer. This control is embedded in an automatic
driving system installed in two testbed mass-produced cars
instrumented for testing the work of these controllers in a real environment.
The results obtained in these experiments show a very
good performance of the gap controller, which is adaptable to all
the speeds and safe gap selections.
Manuscript received October 3, 2002; revised September 22, 2003. This
work was supported in part by ORBEX, Experimental Fuzzy Computer
Project, TIC 961393-C06 of the CICYT, ZOCO, basic infrastructure creation,
IN 96-0118 of the CICYT, COVAN, Automatic Vehicle Control in Natural
Environment, CAM 06T/042/9 of the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid,
GLOBO, GPS and Fuzzy Logic Vehicle Control, TAP 98-0781 of the CICYT.
This work has been funded by the Projects: COVAN CAM 06T/042/96;
ORBEX CICYT TIC 96/1393.c06-03; ZOCO CICYT IN 96-0118; GLOBO
CICYT TAP 98-0813. The Guest Editor for this paper was P. A. Ioannou.
Peer reviewed