Modeling Human Steering Behavior in Haptic Shared Control of Autonomy-Enabled Unmanned Ground Vehicles

A human steering model for teleoperated driving is extended to capture the human steering behavior in haptic shared control of autonomy-enabled Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs).

Prior studies presented human steering models for teleoperation of a passenger-sized Unmanned Ground Vehicle, where a human is fully in charge of driving. However, these models are not applicable when a human needs to interact with autonomy in haptic shared control of autonomy-enabled UGVs. How a human operator reacts to the presence of autonomy needs to be studied and mathematically encapsulated in a module to capture the collaboration between human and autonomy.

Human subject tests are conducted to collect data in haptic shared control for model development and validation. The ACT-R architecture and two-point steering model used in the previous literature are adopted to predict the operator's desired steering angle. A torque conversion module is developed to convert the steering command from the ACT-R model to human torque input, thus enabling haptic shared control with autonomy. A parameterization strategy is described to find the set of model parameters that optimize the haptic shared control performance in terms of minimum average lane keeping error (ALKE).

The model predicts the minimum ALKE human subjects achieve in shared control.

The extended model can successfully predict the best haptic shared control performance as measured by ALKE.

This model can be used in place of human operators, enabling fully simulation-based engineering, in the development and evaluation of haptic shared control technologies for autonomy-enabled UGVs, including control negotiation strategies and autonomy capabilities.