Radar-based Target Tracking Method: Application to Real Road

Principle of the target tracking method for the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system, which is applicable to non-uniform or transient condition, had been proposed by one of the authors. This method does not need any other information rather than that from the radar and host vehicle. Here the method is modified to meet more complex traffic scenarios and then applied to data measured on real highway. The modified method is based on the phase chart between the lateral component of the relative velocity and azimuth of a preceding vehicle. From the trace on the chart, the behavior of a preceding vehicle is judged and the discrimination between the lane change and curve-entry/exit can be made. The method can deal with the lane-change of a preceding vehicle on the curve as well as on the straight lane. And it is applied to more than 20 data including several road/vehicle conditions: road is straight, or turns right or left; vehicles are motorbikes, sedans and trucks. The algorithm could identify a target vehicle during the lane change and curve-entry/exit successfully. The trace of the data on the chart was found to be similar to what is expected in the analysis.