Evaluation of the Effects of Autonomous Vehicles on Highway Geometric Design

Automation Vehicle is emerging as an innovative technology that will eventually replace human-driven vehicles in the immediate future. Since individual road construction for AVs may be impractical in most areas, they will rely on the same infrastructure as human driver vehicles. The purpose of this project is to determine the optimal sensors configuration, including Lidar height, detection range, field of view, and resolution for the safe operation of AV on mixed traffic (autonomous and human-driven vehicles) on existing highways without any geometric design modifications. Since the physical testing on public roads is unsafe, costly, and not consistently reproducible, a simulation-based framework based on the Automated Driving Toolbox in MATLAB was presented. The first aspect is the impact of AV on geometric design, stopping sight distance, and highway alignment. The second section discusses the Lidar system, which serves as the AVs "eye," as well as current Lidar types, technical parameters, and Lidar function. Further, a comparison of commonly used AV sensors, including Lidar, camera, and radar, was provided. Then a MATLAB virtual simulation framework was proposed. This project provides important information regarding sensors configuration that helps AV safely adapt to existing highway infrastructures without modifying the geometric design. Keywords: