A New Safety Distance Calculation for Rear-End Collision Avoidance

Rear-end collision avoidance relies on mathematical models to calculate the safety distance. Vehicle deceleration is a key parameter for the accuracy of the models. Current models, however, assume a constant deceleration during braking, which is unrealistic. This assumption results in large over-approximation / under-approximation. In this paper, we rectify this limitation by proposing a new model that accounts for realistic vehicle deceleration during braking. Simulation results show that our approach guarantees safety. Moreover, traffic flow is improved by 21.6% compared to the widely adopted the Berkeley algorithm.