Inverse Learning for Data-driven Calibration of Model-based Statistical Path Planning

Abstract

This paper presents a method for inverse learning of a control objective defined in terms of requirements and their joint probability distribution from data. The probability distribution characterizes tolerated deviations from the deterministic requirements and is learned using maximum likelihood estimation from data. Further, this paper introduces both parametrized requirements for motion planning in autonomous driving applications and methods for the estimation of their parameters from driving data. Both the parametrized requirements and their joint probability distributions are estimated using a posterior distribution such that the control objective is personalized from a prior as driver data are accumulated. Finally, three variants of the learning method are presented that vary in computational complexity and data storage requirements. Key advantages of the proposed inverse learning method are a relatively low computational complexity, a need for a limited amount of data, and that the data do not have to be segmented into specific maneuvers, which makes the method easily implementable. Learning results using data of five human drivers in a simulation environment suggests that the proposed model for human-conscious driving along with the proposed learning method enable a more natural and personalized driving style of autonomous vehicles for their human passengers.