Analyzing the effects of geometric lane constraints on radar-based sensing of available vehicle headway using mapped lane geometry and camera registration of lane position

Commercial trucks are currently equipped with a single front-facing RADAR mounted on the front bumper, as this is a sensor useful for Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Emergency Braking Systems, and many similar Connected and Automated vehicle functions that require longitudinal vehicle control. This paper investigates the use of a bumper-mounted RADAR to perform traffic characterization around the ego-vehicle to obtain an estimate of the furthest headway that can be considered as a reliable estimate of open maneuvering space, such that there are no vehicles within the same lane as the ego-vehicle. This available headway in front of a vehicle is an important parameter in an ongoing study whose goal is to obtain improvements in fuel economy for highway driving of a tractor-trailer. But headway availability depends on the correct attribution of RADAR-measured vehicles to be either within the ego-lane, or outside the lane. The attribution of lane designations to specific RADAR targets depend strongly on lane geometry and the ability to align RADAR measurements to the ego-lane. This work investigates how knowledge of lane geometries, as well as sensor performance characteristics, may improve the trust in a RADAR measurement of open headway distance in front of a vehicle. Specifically, several strategies for associating local traffic either within or excluded from the ego lane are considered, and the possible sources of error in headway calculations are investigated for each strategy.