Simulation analysis of overtaking behaviour based on Carsim and Simulink

This paper aims to present a full picture of the motion states of the vehicle or the driving behaviours of the driver during overtaking, a special form of lane-change. For this purpose, the author defined the feasible regions for overtaking through analysis of various possible lane-changes, and plotted the boundary trajectory of lane-changes using hepta polynomials. Specifically, the upper boundary of a feasible region was determined according to the desired following distance, and the lower boundary was obtained against the rules of collision avoidance. In addition, the author created typical scenarios of overtaking based on the motion states of the vehicles, and plotted the corresponding overtaking trajectories. Also, the driver model was set up in Simulink with the built-in vehicle model of Carsim, and then applied to the overtaking simulation. The simulation results show that the driver tends to speed up moderately during overtaking; when the car is running at a low speed, the driver tend to perform overtaking with a big lateral acceleration; when the car is running at a high speed, the driver tend to be more careful and conservative, and perform overtaking with a small lateral acceleration. The research findings shed new light on the understanding of overtaking and the driving safety during lane-changes.