Safe autonomous lane-switching controller using high-order control barrier and Lyapunov functions

Abstract: With the rising interest in autonomous vehicles due to developments 
with electric cars and computer vision, controllers that provide safe, 
collision-free manoeuvres are crucial for the advancement of this technology. 
In this thesis, a controller for autonomous vehicles for safe, collision-free 
lane switching on highways including adaptive cruise control is proposed. 
By solving a quadratic program (QP), where high-order control Lyapunov 
functions (HOCLF) and high-order control barrier functions (HOCBF) are used 
as conditions, the input is calculated. The forward invariance of the safe sets 
and, if the safety constraints allow it, stability of the reference values are 
guaranteed. The controller only relies on sensor measurements and does not require 
communication with other vehicles or a higher-level coordinator. Instead, the 
vehicles indicate their intention by their manoeuvres and influence each other’s
safe sets. In contrast to other works, the controller is not rule-based and therefore 
no switching between control algorithms is required. A simulation validates the derived 
theoretic results. Furthermore, the common issue of implementing a CBF-based control 
algorithm in discrete-time is discussed.