Simulated validation of an intelligent traffic control system

Abstract

Driverless cars and robot-driven autonomous vehicles are being promoted as safer than ordinary human-driver. Although it is clear that the software-hardware components embedded in such vehicles may react in a timely manner to reduce errors attributed to human drivers, their timely adaptation to dynamic changes in their environment for safe navigation needs a convincing proof or at least a simulated validation. This paper proposes the use of Adaptive Traffic Control System (ATCS), and explains through a simulation platform how it can enforce safety and promote optimized travel on the road populated by vehicles with and without human drivers. A mathematical models for vehicle behavior near road intersections is given as the foundation of ATCS simulator. The simulation results on a variety of traffic patterns is presented followed by the discussion on the limitation of the current work and challenges in extending the simulator.