A Novel Flexible Lane Changing (FLC) Method in Complicated Dynamic Environment for Automated Vehicles

Decision making and path planning in case of highly transient dynamics of the surrounding as well as the effect of road condition are the issues that are not completely solved in the previous researches. The goal is to perform a safe and comfortable lane change that includes flexible re-planning capabilities. In this paper, a novel structure for path planning and decision making part of a vehicle automatic lane change has been introduced which comprehensively considers both longitudinal and lateral dynamics of the vehicle. The presented method is able to perform re-planning even in the middle of a lane change maneuver according to new traffic condition. Inclusion of the dynamics of all involved vehicles and providing online performance are the other advantages of the proposed system. The algorithm is simulated and various scenarios are constructed to evaluate the efficiency of the system. The results show that the system has completely acceptable performance.