Pedestrian occlusion is challenging for autonomous vehicles (AVs) at midblock locations on multilane roadways because an AV cannot detect crossing pedestrians that are fully occluded by downstream vehicles in adjacent lanes. This paper tests the capability of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication between an AV and its downstream vehicles to share midblock pedestrian crossings information. The researchers developed a V2V-based collision-avoidance decision strategy and compared it to a base scenario (i.e., decision strategy without the utilization of V2V). Simulation results showed that for the base scenario, the near-zero time-to-collision (TTC) indicated no time for the AV to take appropriate action and resulted in dramatic braking followed by collisions. But the V2V-based collision-avoidance decision strategy allowed for a proportional braking approach to increase the TTC allowing the pedestrian to cross safely. To conclude, the V2V-based collision-avoidance decision strategy has higher safety benefits for an AV interacting with fully occluded pedestrians at midblock locations on multilane roadways.

翻译：摘要：在多车道道路中间路段，行人遮挡对自动驾驶车辆（AV）构成挑战，因为自动驾驶车辆无法检测到被相邻车道下游车辆完全遮挡的过街行人。本研究测试了自动驾驶车辆与其下游车辆之间通过车对车（V2V）通信共享中间路段行人过街信息的能力。研究人员开发了一种基于V2V的避撞决策策略，并将其与基准场景（即未利用V2V的决策策略）进行对比。仿真结果表明：在基准场景中，接近零的碰撞时间（TTC）表明自动驾驶车辆没有时间采取适当行动，导致剧烈制动并最终发生碰撞；而基于V2V的避撞决策策略能够采用比例制动方法增加碰撞时间（TTC），使行人安全过街。结论是，在多车道道路中间路段，基于V2V的避撞决策策略为与完全遮挡行人交互的自动驾驶车辆提供了更高的安全性效益。