High Order Bézier Curves Based Path Planning for Autonomous Movement in Single Lane Roundabouts

Abstract

None of the possible advantages of autonomous vehicles are going to become reality if the autonomous vehicles are not going to be able to move properly in various different urban scenarios like lane changing, intersections, roundabouts, etc. One of the first tasks, which must be solved in order to be able to properly autonomously move in different urban scenarios, is the path planning. However, the path planning problems, while taking into consideration different urban scenarios, are analysed not equally and the roundabouts is the scenario, which is still behind. Thus, this work analyses the path planning for roundabouts problem, while applying one of the most popular interpolation based approaches – the Bezier curves. A novel way to select the control points for high order Bezier curves, intended for entering a single lane roundabout, driving within the roundabout and exiting the roundabout, is presented.