Safe and Reliable Path Planning for the Autonomous Vehicle Verdino

This paper introduces a local planner which computes a set of commands, allowing an autonomous vehicle to follow a given trajectory. To do so, the platform relies on a localization system, a map and a cost map which represents the obstacles in the environment. The presented method computes a set of tentative trajectories, using a schema based on a Frenet frame obtained from the global planner. These trajectories are then scored using a linear combination of weighted cost functions. In the presented approach, new weights are introduced in order to satisfy the specificities of our autonomous platform, Verdino. A study on the influence of the defined weights in the final behavior of the vehicle is introduced. From these tests, several configurations have been chosen and ranked according to two different proposed behaviors. The method has been tested both in simulation and in real conditions.