An Ontology-based Approach to Relax Traffic Regulation for Autonomous Vehicle Assistance

Traffic regulation must be respected by all vehicles, either human- or computer- driven. However, extreme traffic situations might exhibit practical cases in which a vehicle should safely and reasonably relax traffic regulation, e.g., in order not to be indefinitely blocked and to keep circulating. In this paper, we propose a high-level representation of an automated vehicle, other vehicles and their environment, which can assist drivers in taking such "illegal" but practical relaxation decisions. This high-level representation (an ontology) includes topological knowledge and inference rules, in order to compute the next high-level motion an automated vehicle should take, as assistance to a driver. Results on practical cases are presented.