Trajectory planning for Bertha — A local, continuous method

TLDR

The paper presents a trajectory‑planning strategy used onboard a vehicle that autonomously completed 103 km of the Bertha‑Benz‑Memorial‑Route. The method is a local, continuous trajectory planner derived from a variational formulation, optimizing a dynamic‑feasibility and comfort objective while incorporating static and dynamic obstacles as polygons. The approach successfully guided the vehicle autonomously over 103 km, with constraints ensuring convergence to a unique global optimum.

Abstract

In this paper, we present the strategy for trajectory planning that was used on-board the vehicle that completed the 103 km of the Bertha-Benz-Memorial-Route fully autonomously. We suggest a local, continuous method that is derived from a variational formulation. The solution trajectory is the constrained extremum of an objective function that is designed to express dynamic feasibility and comfort. Static and dynamic obstacle constraints are incorporated in the form of polygons. The constraints are carefully designed to ensure that the solution converges to a single, global optimum.