Method of Pedestrian-vehicle Conflict Eliminating at Unsignalized Mid-block Crosswalks for Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous driving has become a popular topic in both industry and academia. For autonomous vehicles, driving safety is the primary prerequisite. Pedestrians are important traffic participants in urban roads. In the process of pedestrian-vehicle interaction, for pedestrians and autonomous vehicles in different locations at crosswalks, different conflicts eliminating measures may need to be adopted by autonomous vehicles, to ensure safety and efficiency of pedestrians and vehicles. According to different locations of vehicles and pedestrians, a conflict eliminating model of autonomous vehicle is proposed. Moreover, a cellular automaton model is developed to simulate the interaction between autonomous vehicles and pedestrians. For vehicles and pedestrians in different locations, the model eliminates possible conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles according to rules. The results showed that the proposed conflict eliminating method can effectively avoid the conflict between autonomous vehicles and pedestrians. Pedestrian safety and efficiency are improved significantly. Moreover, the efficiency of vehicle is also improved.