Simulation of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment : An investigation on how basic models can create a realistic result

Sammanfattning: Recently, much progress has been done towards making vehicles autonomous and to behave in certain ways when interacting with manned and unmanned traffic. Furthermore, autonomous driving is said to be revolutionary and have many benefits. Even though there still are plenty of unsolved issues, several projects have made it possible for groundbreaking steps in the development. This report will cover some of the recently held projects and tools of importance, and describe a conducted simulation of urban driving with autonomous cars. A behavioral steering system and different types of zones is used to implement the simulation in an urban city. The object is to find out how realistic a simulation can be made with models from the gaming industry. With elements such as roundabouts and various crossings, the traffic simulation is evaluated. Some traffic phenomena have been recreated and compared to traffic dynamic models nd real life occurrences. For example, a test ascertains if the simulation can reproduce an expected behavior when stopping at a signalized control. We also try to investigate if the expected performance when driving through a roundabout respectively intersection can be achieved at light and heavy traffic. The results show numerous traffic problems that can behandled by the cars’ behavior system. It is then concluded that it is possible to create a realistic simulation by using models and methods from computer games.