Pedestrians are among the most vulnerable participants in traffic, particularly
when crossing the road. Extensive research has been conducted globally on the
yielding behavior analysis of vehicle–pedestrian interaction and the design of
automatic vehicle braking systems to mitigate pedestrian casualties. However,
few studies have comprehensively addressed lateral risks using implicit
kinematic cues in pedestrian–vehicle interactions. Moreover, the design of
collision avoidance systems has rarely taken into account driving behavior,
along with the pedestrian’s kinematics and crossing behavior. This article
presents a human-like automatic braking fuzzy control strategy for
pedestrian–vehicle collision avoidance, combining the advantages of professional
driver emergency braking behavior and kinematic interaction cues. First, a
high-fidelity driving simulator is used to investigate the yielding behavior of
pedestrian–vehicle interaction when pedestrians cross the road. Second, the
intrusion position (XP), as a new lateral risk
index, is designed to overcome the limitation of lateral distance in complex
pedestrian–vehicle interaction scenarios. Various metrics are considered to
analyze driver emergency braking behavior using statistical methods from both
lateral and longitudinal aspects. Subsequently, based on driver braking
behavior, the human-like automatic braking fuzzy control strategy is proposed.
Finally, simulation examples verify the reliability of the analysis results and
the proposed controller’s effectiveness. Compared with a conventional automatic
braking system, the timing of interventions of the proposed system is on average
2.9 s earlier, and the braking deceleration is reduced by 3.59
m/s2.
