Incorporating Human Driving Data into Simulations and Trajectory Predictions

The development of algorithms for automated driving is a very challenging task. Recent progress in machine learning suggests that many algorithms will have a hybrid structure composed of deterministic or optimization and learning based elements. To train and validate such algorithms, realistic simulations are required. They need to be interaction based, incorporate intelligent surrounding traffic and the other traffic participants behavior has to be probabilistic. Current simulation environments for automotive systems often focus on vehicle dynamics. There are also microscopic traffic simulations that on the other hand don’t take vehicle dynamics into account. The few simulation software products that combine both elements still have at least one major problem. That is because lane change trajectories disregard human driving dynamics during such maneuvers. Consequently, machine learning algorithms developed and trained in simulations hardly generalize to non-synthetic data and therefore to real-world applications.