Sensitivity Analysis and Extended Evaluation of the Two-Level Stochastic Model for the Lateral Movement of Vehicles within their Lane

The range of vision of vehicle sensors used by auto-mated driving functions is considerably influenced by the lateral movement of vehicles within their lane, both of the recording vehicle and of vehicles around it. To cover this phenomenon in simulations for virtual validation, a two-level stochastic model for the lateral movement of vehicles within their lane under homogeneous traffic conditions has recently been proposed by Neis et al. [1]. It consists of the superposition of a Markov model for the discrete and systematic coarse movement, and a noise model for the stochastically independent fine movement. The general importance of the parameter choice on the performance of the two-level model has already been noted when the model was introduced. More details are added by the present work performing a sensitivity analysis on the model's parameters. Moreover, the evaluation of the model is extended by assessing its capability to describe the lateral speed. The work deepens the understanding of the model's way of working and its sensitivity to the parameters, and motivates the parameter choice in previous work. Besides this, potential for improvement of the model beyond what has already been discussed in the introductory paper is identified based on the extended investigation.