Autonomous Motion Planning in Pedestrian Space Considering Passenger Comfort

In this study, we proposed an autonomous motion planning method for improving passenger comfort while ensuring safety, particularly with respect to mobility scooters used by elderly people. We proposed a trajectory planner for restricting vehicle behaviors with large accelerations and jerks by selecting a safe trajectory from a set of preset trajectories. Then, based on this trajectory planner, we developed an autonomous motion planning method with four different driving modes, and evaluated the effectiveness of the method through a numerical simulation. The simulation results demonstrated that the proposed method increased comfort without compromising on safety.