Intelligent fuzzy distance and cruise control for passenger cars

As individual and commercial traffic flow on roads and highways grows enormously the number of traffic jams and accidents increases as well. Therefore, modern vehicle research is not only focused on adapting driving comfort to the growing traffic density in order to retain the advantages of individualized mobility, but also on improving passengers' safety. One way to improve safety and comfort of manually driven cars is to assist the driver by an Adaptive Distance and Cruise Control system (ACC).

This paper deals with the design and implementation of a combined control structure using conventional techniques for vehicle acceleration control on the one hand and fuzzy control algorithms for vehicle velocity and intervehicle distance control on the other hand. In this application, the major advantage using a fuzzy representation is the possibility to describe the subjective comfort and safety demands of drivers by linguistic formulation.