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Communication-aware predictive lane-change coordination for mixed autonomous traffic using SafeLane-VANET.
Narayanam Sri Prakash1,2, Panchala Venkata Naganjaneyulu3, N Renuka4
1Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology, Mizoram University, Aizawl, 796004, Mizoram, India. prakash.sn.10@gmail.com.
Scientific Reports
|July 10, 2026
Summary
SafeLane-VANET enhances cooperative lane changes in mixed traffic by integrating communication awareness and predictive safety. This novel framework improves safety, stability, and comfort for autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles sharing the road.
Area of Science:
- Intelligent Transportation Systems
- Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communications
- Autonomous Driving Systems
Background:
- Lane changing is critical in mixed traffic (autonomous vehicles/AVs and non-autonomous vehicles/Non-AVs).
- Existing methods like MOBIL struggle with communication uncertainty, delayed conflict resolution, and maneuver stability in dense traffic.
- These limitations necessitate advanced frameworks for safe cooperative lane changes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce SafeLane-VANET, a communication-aware framework for predicting safe arbitration during cooperative lane changes in mixed AV/Non-AV traffic.
- To address shortcomings of traditional methods by accounting for communication uncertainty and diverse driving behaviors.
- To enhance safety, maneuver stability, and ride comfort in complex traffic scenarios.
Main Methods:
- Developed SafeLane-VANET, combining legality-aware target-lane scoring, V2X intent coordination, and short-horizon motion prediction.
- Created a reproducible SUMO-ns-3-Python co-simulation environment for testing under various traffic densities and communication conditions.
- Validated the framework using experimental results, ablation studies, and real-world trajectory data.
Main Results:
- SafeLane-VANET significantly improved safety, maneuver stability, and ride comfort compared to MOBIL-only.
- In high-density, degraded-communication scenarios, Time-to-Collision (TTC) p5 improved from 0.95s to 1.55s, and unsafe maneuver executions (USM) reduced from 25.1% to 10.4%.
- Communication-aware intent coordination and predictive safety gating enhanced robustness against mixed-traffic uncertainty.
Conclusions:
- SafeLane-VANET provides a safer and more reliable approach to cooperative autonomy in connected vehicular environments.
- The framework effectively manages communication uncertainty and diverse driving behaviors for improved lane change arbitration.
- Results demonstrate the potential of SafeLane-VANET for future intelligent transportation systems.
