JSAE20014003

JSAE Review 22 (2001) 15}22

Design of a headway distance control system for ACC
Akira Higashimata, Kazutaka Adachi, Takenori Hashizume, Satoshi Tange
Control Engineering Group, Electronics Development Department No. 1, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., Technical Center, 560-2,
Okatsukoku, Atsugi-city, Kanagawa 243-0192, Japan
Vehicle Research Laboratory, Nissan Research Center, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., 1, Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka-city, Kanagawa 237-8523, Japan
Received 13 April 2000; received in revised form 9 June 2000
Abstract
A headway distance control system for adaptive cruise control (ACC) must provide the driver's desired response at all times while
maintaining stability. Therefore, a two- degree-of-freedommodel was adopted for the headway distance control unit to allow response
and stability to be designed as independent parameters. The desired response was decided based on the results of various driving tests
and driving simulations. Using these results as the reference model has achieved the smooth response and stability required for
ACC. 2001 Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan, Inc. and Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Autonomous vehicle control systems have been the
focus of vigorous R&D e!orts in recent years with the
aim of reducing the driver's workload by assisting with
the execution of driving tasks such as when traveling on
expressways [1]. Adaptive cruise control (ACC) for con-
trolling the host vehicle's speed and headway distance to
a preceding vehicle is regarded as a leading example of
such systems. It is projected that e!orts to implement
ACC technology on production vehicles will be acceler-
ated in the next few years. An ACC system can automati-
cally adjust the headway distance and host vehicle's
speed to match the #ow of tra$c under driving condi-
tions where vehicle speeds change frequently. By freeing
drivers from the need to accelerate or decelerate con-
stantly, an ACCsystemwould enable themto enjoy more
comfortable driving at a reduced level of fatigue.
If ACC technology is to "nd widespread acceptance
among vehicle users, it will be essential to design a system
that can operate under the widest possible range of
driving environments and also provide natural vehicle
behavior which does not deviate from drivers' expecta-
tions. We have developed a headway distance control
system based on drivers' actual behavior in adjusting the
distance to a vehicle ahead. This approach achieves ACC
capabilities for following a preceding vehicle while main-
taining a desired headway distance corresponding to the
driving speed.
This paper describes the design method of the
control system and presents the results of driving tests
conducted to verify the control performance ob-
tained.
2. Control system design
The newly developed ACC system described here is
con"gured hierarchically as shown in Fig. 1. It mainly
consists of a target headway distance calculator that
determines the target distance from the operating state of
the ACC vehicle and a preceding vehicle; a headway
distance controller that calculates the vehicle velocity
command for achieving the target headway distance; and
a vehicle velocity controller that determines the driving
or braking torque so that the actual velocity of the ACC
vehicle matches the commanded velocity.
The following discussion explains how the headway
distance control system was designed based on an analy-
sis of the characteristics of driver behavior in adjusting
the headway distance.
2.1. Characteristics of driver behavior
To achieve ACC headway distance control that does
not deviate from drivers' expectations, it is necessary to
construct the control system such that it simulates the
behavior of exemplary drivers. It can be assumed that
driver behavior in adjusting the headway distance can be
characterized in terms of two characteristics. One is that
the driver acts to achieve a relative velocity of zero with
the preceding vehicle. The second characteristic is that
0389-4304/01/$20.00 2001 Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan, Inc. and Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 8 9 - 4 3 0 4 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 9 1 - 6
Fig. 1. Con"guration of adaptive cruise control system.
Fig. 2. Phase plane trajectories of driver behavior.
the driver acts to converge the headway distance with
a distance he has determined.
To examine these characteristics, an analysis was made
of driver behavior in adjusting the headway distance
when approaching a slower moving vehicle ahead. This
analysis focused on the deviation between the "nal ad-
justed headway distance and the actual headway distance
(referred to here as the target headway distance devi-
ation) and changes in relative velocity. Typical results are
shown in Fig. 2 in terms of trajectories of driver behavior
plotted in phase planes expressed by the target headway
distance deviation and relative velocity. The trajectories
show a tendency to converge to the target headway
distance in smooth leftward-oriented curves. This means
that the subjects avoided decelerating the test vehicle
abruptly and executed smooth driving actions to con-
verge the vehicle to the target headway distance in rela-
tion to the preceding vehicle. It was also observed that
the trajectories showed nearly the same tendencies re-
gardless of the vehicle speed, provided that the driver of
the test vehicle became aware of the preceding vehicle
under the same phase plane condition.
2.2. Design of headway distance control system
Based on the foregoing analysis of driver behavior
characteristics and drivers' actions in adjusting the head-
way distance in various driving situations, the following
two characteristics were identi"ed as being important
factors in vehicle control performance.
(1) Being able to set the transient characteristics after
the ACC vehicle begins to follow a preceding vehicle, i.e.,
response of headway distance control. This control char-
acteristic determines a trajectory for converging the
headway distance to the target value after the driver of
the ACC vehicle realizes there is a vehicle ahead.
(2) Achieving stable control performance while follow-
ing a preceding vehicle. Control system stability must be
secured against external disturbances such as changes
that occur in the speed of the preceding vehicle during
following.
In order to satisfy these performance requirements
under a wide variety of driving situations, the headway
16 A. Higashimata et al. / JSAE Review 22 (2001) 15}22
Fig. 3. Diagram of velocity control.
Fig. 4. Plant of distance control system.
Fig. 5. Feedback compensator of distance controller.
distance control systemmust allowresponse and stability
to be designed as independent parameters. Therefore,
a two-degree-of-freedomcontrol system based on a refer-
ence model [2] was adopted to allow these character-
istics to be determined independently.
In adopting this type of system, it is necessary to
describe the object of control (vehicle plant) in the form
of an easy-to-treat transfer function. Therefore, a hier-
archical system con"guration was adopted in which the
headway distance is not controlled directly but rather
through a vehicle velocity control system [3] possessing
a prescribed transfer characteristic. With this con"gura-
tion, headway distance response is compensated by feed-
forward control using the inverse system of the transfer
function of the velocity control system. The stability
characteristic for maintaining the desired headway dis-
tance was con"gured using pole placement based on
feedback control.
2.2.1. Plant
From the standpoint of the headway distance control
system, the plant is the ACC vehicle which executes
velocity control such that the response of the actual
velocity relative to the velocity command is always con-
sistent with the prescribed transfer characteristic. The
transfer function G
.
(s) of the plant can be expressed by
the following equation using the target transfer function
G
24
(s) of the velocity control system and its integral:
G
.
(s)"
1
s
G
24
(s). (1)
As shown in Fig. 3, the velocity control system is
con"gured using a robust model-matching technique so
that the prescribed response can be obtained at all times.
The response of the actual vehicle velocity relative to the
velocity command is controlled such that it coincides
with the target transfer function G
24
(s) of the model-
matching compensator in relation to the robust compen-
sator-equipped vehicle. The target transfer function is
given by Eq. (2) as a "rst-order delay.
G
24
(s)"
1

24
s#1
. (2)
Accordingly, since the plant of the headway distance
control system can be expressed as shown in the block
diagram in Fig. 4, the input}output relationship of the
actual headway distance d
0
relative to the vehicle velo-
city command <
!
can be written as Eq. (3).
d
0
(s)"
1
s
v
$
(s)!
1

24
s#1
v
!
(s)

, (3)
where v
$
is the velocity of the preceding vehicle.
2.2.2. Feedback compensator
The feedback compensator functions to maintain the
desired headway distance by reducing any deviation in
vehicle behavior that occurs during following and any
deviation that might occur between the reference model
response and the actual vehicle response. When con-
"gured with the reference headway distance d
2
as its
input and the actual headway distance d
0
as its output, as
shown in Fig. 5, the transfer function G

(s) of the feed-

back compensator is given by Eq. (4).
G

(s)"s f
4
#f
"
. (4)
In addition, the closed-loop transfer function G
*
(s) of the
feedback compensator can be found as shown in Eq. (5).
G
*
(s)"
d
0
(s)
d
2
(s)
"
G

(s)G
.
(s)
1#G

(s)G
.
(s)
"
s f
4
#f
"

24
s#(1#f
4
)s#f
"
"

*
(
*
s#1)
s#2
*

*
s#
*
, (5)
A. Higashimata et al. / JSAE Review 22 (2001) 15}22 17
Fig. 6. Diagram of distance control system.
where

*
"(f
"
/
24
,
*
"
(1#f
4
)
2
*

24
,
*
"f
4
/f
"
. (6)
In this characteristic polynomial of the closed-loop
transfer function G
*
(s), the natural angular frequency

*
and damping factor
*
can be set arbitrarily so as to
achieve the vehicle behavior during following desired by
the designer. Based on the
*
and
*
values thus se-
lected, the feedback coe$cients f
"
and f
4
are given by
Eqs. (7) and (8), respectively.
f
"
"
*

24
, (7)
f
4
"2
*

24
!1. (8)
2.2.3. Feedforward compensator
Fig. 6 shows the overall con"guration of the headway
distance control system incorporating a two-degree-of-
freedom reference model calculator. As shown in the
"gure, the feedforward compensator consists of a refer-
ence model, which calculates the headway distance re-
sponse in reference to driver behavior characteristics, and
a phase compensator (having a transfer function of G
!
(s))
composed of the inverse system of the transfer function
G
.
(s) of the plant and the transfer characteristic G
2
(s) of
the reference model.
From Fig. 6, the output of each compensator and the
transfer characteristic of the actual headway distance
d
0
can be described by Eqs. (9)}(11).
v
$
"G

(s)+G
2
(s)d
!
(s)!d
0
(s),, (9)
v
$$
"G
2
(s)d
!
(s), (10)
d
0
(s)"G
.
(s)v
!
"G
.
(s)+v
$
(s)#v
$$
(s),. (11)
By rearranging Eq. (11) from Eqs. (9) and (10), the trans-
fer function G
+
(s) of the entire system from the target
headway distance d
!
to the actual headway distance
d
0
can be given by Eq. (12).
G
+
(s)"
G
.
(s)G
2
(s)G

(s)#G
!
(s)G
.
(s)
1#G
.
(s)G

(s)
. (12)
It is clear that the transfer function G
+
(s) can be made to
coincide with the transfer characteristic G
2
(s) of the refer-
ence model by de"ning the transfer function G
!
(s) of the
phase compensator as shown in Eq. (13).
G
!
(s)"
G
2
(s)
G
.
(s)
. (13)
Accordingly, the vehicle velocity control system should
function such that the response of the actual vehicle
velocity <

relative to the vehicle velocity command

<
!
is always consistent with the response characteristic
G
24
(s). Provided that such plant control is achieved, the
designer can obtain the desired headway distance re-
sponse by means of the feed forward compensator.
The transfer function G
2
(s) of the reference model was
de"ned as a second-order lag element as given by Eq. (14)
because of the need to ensure the proper functioning of
the phase compensator G
!
(s).
G
*
(s)"

2
s#2
2

2
s#
2
. (14)
Additionally, the target headway distance d
!
was de"ned
so as to obtain the prescribed headway time t
0
in re-
sponse to the velocity v
$
of the preceding vehicle.
d
!
(t)"t
0
v
$
(t). (15)
3. Application to an actual vehicle
The
2
and
2
values of the transfer function G
2
(s) of
the reference model are designed such that the reference
model simulates the characteristics of driver behavior.
That is done to ensure that the headway distance control
system does not result in vehicle behavior which would
18 A. Higashimata et al. / JSAE Review 22 (2001) 15}22
Fig. 7. An example.
seem strange to the driver. The way in which these
parameters are designed is explained below.
Based on the results of the analysis of driver behavior
characteristics, phase planes were expressed in terms of
the target headway distance deviation and relative velo-
city. The quadrants of those phase planes have the fol-
lowing meaning with respect to the driving state and
vehicle behavior. The reference model is de"ned so as to
satisfy these respective driving states.
(1) First quadrant: This quadrant corresponds to a situ-
ation where a preceding vehicle traveling at a faster speed
than the ACC vehicle is present at a distance farther than
the target headway distance. The ACC vehicle can accel-
erate within the speed range set by the driver. A faster
response should be set here because there is an increas-
ingly stronger perception that the preceding vehicle is
pulling away from the ACC vehicle.
(2) Second quadrant: This quadrant corresponds to
a situation where a preceding vehicle traveling at
a slower speed than the ACC vehicle is present at a dis-
tance beyond the target headway distance. The ACC
vehicle is decelerated to the speed of the preceding ve-
hicle. In the region of a small relative velocity, the re-
sponse should be set so that the ACC vehicle does not
encroach upon the target headway distance; in the region
of a large relative velocity, it should be set so that the
ACC vehicle encroaches slightly on the target headway
distance. This quadrant represents one of the most typi-
cal ACC driving scenarios.
(3) Third quadrant: This quadrant corresponds to
a situation where a slower moving vehicle cuts in front of
the ACC vehicle at a distance shorter than the target
headway level while the latter is following a preceding
vehicle. The ACC vehicle decelerates immediately so as
to achieve the target headway distance. A fast response is
set in this region because there is a risk of a rear-end
collision with the vehicle that cuts in front.
(4) Fourth quadrant: This quadrant corresponds to
a situation where a preceding vehicle traveling at a faster
speed than the ACC vehicle is present at a distance
shorter than the target headway distance. This situation
could occur when the ACC vehicle changes lanes right
after having been passed by a faster moving vehicle. The
ACC vehicle gradually accelerates until the target head-
way distance is reached. Giving precedence to the target
headway distance in this case would result in strange
deceleration behavior. Therefore, a gradual response
characteristic is set so as to avoid unnecessary deceler-
ation.
Since the required performance di!ers from one quad-
rant to another, the
2
and
2
values of the reference
model are set so that they correspond to the circumstan-
ces of each quadrant. Fig. 7 gives an example of how each
value is set.
4. Driving tests
Driving tests were conducted to con"rm whether the
aims and intended e!ects of the headway distance control
system had been achieved. Tests were conducted for the
following two driving situations which were de"ned as
typical examples for the use of ACC.
(1) First scenario * approaching: The driver of the
ACC vehicle, traveling at 27.8 m/s, becomes aware of
a preceding vehicle traveling at 19.4 m/s at a forward
distance of 120 m. The vehicle behavior until the target
headway distance is achieved is con"rmed.
A. Higashimata et al. / JSAE Review 22 (2001) 15}22 19
Fig. 8. Approaching.
Fig. 9. Cutting-in.
(2) Second scenario *cutting in: While the ACCvehicle
is following a preceding vehicle at a speed of 20.8 m/s,
another vehicle traveling at 19.4 m/s cuts in front at
a distance of 30 m. Con"rmation is made of the vehicle
behavior until the target headway distance is achieved to
the vehicle that cut in front.
The test results for these two scenarios are shown
in Figs. 8 and 9. In both cases, it is seen that the head-
20 A. Higashimata et al. / JSAE Review 22 (2001) 15}22
Fig. 10. Comparison with human driver.
Fig. 11. Comparison with human driver (Phase plane trajectories).
way distance and relative velocity agree well with the
reference model response, thereby con"rming that the
headway distance control system achieved the target
performance.
Figs. 10 and 11 show comparisons with the character-
istics of human driver behavior. The headway distance
and relative velocity agree well with the behavior exhib-
ited by the human driver. This con"rms that the headway
distance control system achieved natural vehicle behav-
ior as a result of re#ecting the characteristics of driver
behavior in the reference model.
5. Conclusion
This paper has described the design of a headway
distance control system that allows the headway distance
response and stability characteristic for following a pre-
ceding vehicle to be set independently. It has been shown
that these two characteristics are important factors in
obtaining practical ACC performance.
A two-degree-of-freedomcontrol systemincorporating
a reference model has been adopted to attain the required
control system performance. In order to obtain control
performance without any feeling of strange vehicle be-
havior, the reference model re#ects the characteristics of
actual driver behavior in adjusting the headway distance.
Moreover, the reference model has been designed to
correspond to phase planes expressed in terms of the
target headway distance deviation and relative velocity,
two factors that characterize driver behavior. As a result,
the system can provide natural vehicle control behavior
under various driving situations.
References
[1] Nobuyuki, F. et al., Development of a scanning laser radar for
ACC, SAE Technical Paper, No. 980615 (1998).
A. Higashimata et al. / JSAE Review 22 (2001) 15}22 21
[2] Tohru, I. et al., Design of the two-degree-of-freedom slip speed
control system for automatic transmissions (in Japanese with
English summary), Transactions of the Society of Instrument and
Control Engineers, Vol. 34, No. 11 (1998).
[3] Hideo N. et al., E!ectiveness of a robust control method for
automotive powertrain control, IPC-10 Paper no. 99066
(1999).
22 A. Higashimata et al. / JSAE Review 22 (2001) 15}22