Maneuver-Based Vehicle Guidance Based on the Conduct-by-Wire Principle

Conduct-by-Wire (CbW) is an innovative vehicle guidance concept that shifts the vehicle control task from the stabilization level to the guidance level. Instead of continuous stabilization on a designated trajectory—using the conventional control elements for manual steering, braking and accelerating—a CbW vehicle is controlled by means of maneuver commands. This concept allows a maximum degree of automation, while—unlike fully automated concepts—still keeping the driver responsible for the vehicle guidance according to the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. In this article a methodology for the technical feasibility assessment of the Conduct-by-Wire principle in the early concept phase is proposed. Starting at the system level with the development of the CbW system architecture the CbW functionality and a cooperative interaction concept—the gate concept—are stepwise concretized. Moreover, the driving situations this cooperative vehicle guidance concept has to cope with are systematically derived. These steps build the basis for analyzing whether the gate concept as a theoretical approach to cooperatively pass the decision points along the planned trajectory during the maneuver execution might also be suitable in practical use. The assessment is focused on analyzing the time available to the driver or the automation for the decision-making process. These studies at the system level build the basis for concretizing the functional development that is exemplarily shown for the determination of the requirements of the environment perception system. Following this systems engineering approach allows for handling the complexity and for a stepwise development. Furthermore, a decision on whether the realization of this innovative concept is worth can be made at different abstraction levels before a prototype system has to be built up.