arXiv subjects

Jorge Villagra

Publications and source records attributed to Jorge Villagra.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Generation of Vectorized Maps Beyond Vehicle View

Autonomous driving relies on High Definition (HD) maps for safe navigation. Traditional HD maps construction is costly in hardware, data and human resources, which together with its update limitations hinders scalability. Recent works have proposed online alternatives for HD vectorized mapping from onboard sensors. However, sensor field of view is limited, and the range of the reconstructed maps ahead of the vehicle is insufficient for safe planning. This paper aims to address this limitation by proposing the novel beyond-view vectorized map generation problem: given vectorized maps of the area sensed by the vehicle (in-view), to generate plausible map continuations. To experimentally assess its feasibility, we propose BeyondFormer, which, to the best of out knowledge, is the first work designed towards beyond-view map generation. Given the novelty of the problem, we generate the first dataset specifically designed for it and evaluate the proposed approach. The results demonstrate consistent performance across diverse scenarios, establishing learning-based methods as a promising direction for map forecasting in autonomous driving. Beyond demonstrating the feasibility of the task, we provide an extensive discussion of the method's limitations and identify key future research directions for scaling it to more complex driving conditions. Code is available at https://git-autopia.car.upm-csic.es/beyondformer.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2026

Waypoints Matter: A Systematic Study for Sampling-Based Trajectory Planning

Real-time autonomous driving commonly relies on sampling-based trajectory planners that link candidate trajectories to target waypoints along the road centerline. The placement of these waypoints directly impacts both the existence and quality of feasible trajectories. Yet, its effect on planner performance remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we treat waypoint placement as a first-class design variable. We hold the trajectory primitive and candidate budget fixed, and systematically sweep three placement strategies (uniform spacing, an augmented Ramer-Douglas-Peucker variant (RDP*), and a novel curvature-conditioned allocation) across 449 configurations and five CommonRoad maps of increasing geometric complexity. Our results show that the nominal inter-waypoint spacing $d_s$ is the primary performance driver, with large differences in planner reliability attributed to placement alone. Uniform sampling at a well-tuned spacing matches or surpasses both RDP* and the centered curvature variant. The curvature variant offers a small but consistent advantage on geometrically complex roads under reliability-first and balanced weightings, while RDP* never outperforms uniform sampling. These findings suggest that $d_s$ should be treated as the dominant tuning parameter, with geometry-aware strategies reserved for curvature-rich corridors where feasibility is the limiting factor.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Frequency-based Design Method for Model-Free Controllers

Model-Free Control (MFC) has been applied to a wide variety of systems in which it has shown its performance. MFC offers "model-free operation", but the controller design requires some information from the nominal plant. This paper introduces a new design method for model-free controllers that uses minimal data about the system and retrieves a set of stable controller configurations. This method is specifically developed for first-order model-free controllers, but can be extended to second-order controllers, and it relies in a frequency analysis of the controller and the plant. The main feature of the design method is decoupling the design of the main control parameter alpha from the rest, providing specific values for it. The efficacy of the proposed method will be showcased with some relevant application examples.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2024

Categorized Grid and Unknown Space Causes for LiDAR-based Dynamic Occupancy Grids

Occupancy Grids have been widely used for perception of the environment as they allow to model the obstacles in the scene, as well as free and unknown space. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the unknown space due to the necessity of better understanding the situation. Although Occupancy Grids have received numerous extensions over the years to address emerging needs, currently, few works go beyond the delimitation of the unknown space area and seek to incorporate additional information. This work builds upon the already well-established LiDAR-based Dynamic Occupancy Grid to introduce a complementary Categorized Grid that conveys its estimation using semantic labels while adding new insights into the possible causes of unknown space. The proposed categorization first divides the space by occupancy and then further categorizes the occupied and unknown space. Occupied space is labeled based on its dynamic state and reliability, while the unknown space is labeled according to its possible causes, whether they stem from the perception system's inherent constraints, limitations induced by the environment, or other causes. The proposed Categorized Grid is showcased in real-world scenarios demonstrating its usefulness for better situation understanding.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Integrating occlusion awareness in urban motion prediction for enhanced autonomous vehicle navigation

Motion prediction is a key factor towards the full deployment of autonomous vehicles. It is fundamental in order to ensure safety while navigating through highly interactive and complex scenarios. Lack of visibility due to an obstructed view or sensor range poses a great safety issue for autonomous vehicles. The inclusion of occlusion in interaction-aware approaches is not very well explored in the literature. In this work, the MultIAMP framework, which produces multimodal probabilistic outputs from the integration of a Dynamic Bayesian Network and Markov chains, is extended to tackle occlusions. The framework is evaluated with a state-of-the-art motion planner in two realistic use cases.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2023

Lateral control for autonomous vehicles: A comparative evaluation

The selection of an appropriate control strategy is essential for ensuring safe operation in autonomous driving. While numerous control strategies have been developed for specific driving scenarios, a comprehensive comparative assessment of their performance using the same tuning methodology is lacking in the literature. This paper addresses this gap by presenting a systematic evaluation of state-of-the-art model-free and model-based control strategies. The objective is to evaluate and contrast the performance of these controllers across a wide range of driving scenarios, reflecting the diverse needs of autonomous vehicles. To facilitate the comparative analysis, a comprehensive set of performance metrics is selected, encompassing accuracy, robustness, and comfort. The contributions of this research include the design of a systematic tuning methodology, the use of two novel metrics for stability and comfort comparisons and the evaluation through extensive simulations and real tests in an experimental instrumented vehicle over a wide range of trajectories.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2023

Learning-enabled multi-modal motion prediction in urban environments

Motion prediction is a key factor towards the full deployment of autonomous vehicles. It is fundamental in order to assure safety while navigating through highly interactive complex scenarios. In this work, the framework IAMP (Interaction- Aware Motion Prediction), producing multi-modal probabilistic outputs from the integration of a Dynamic Bayesian Network and Markov Chains, is extended with a learning-based approach. The integration of a machine learning model tackles the limitations of the ruled-based mechanism since it can better adapt to different driving styles and driving situations. The method here introduced generates context-dependent acceleration distributions used in a Markov-chain-based motion prediction. This hybrid approach results in better evaluation metrics when compared with the baseline in the four

cs.RO↗

arXiv2022

Speed-Adaptive Model-Free Lateral Control for Automated Cars

In order to increase the number of situations in which an intelligent vehicle can operate without human intervention, lateral control is required to accurately guide it in a reference trajectory regardless of the shape of the road or the longitudinal speed. Some studies address this problem by tuning a controller for low and high speeds and including an output adaptation law. In this paper, a strategy framed in the Model-Free Control paradigm is presented to laterally control the vehicle over a wide speed range. Tracking quality, system stability and passenger comfort are thoroughly analyzed and compared to similar control structures. The results obtained both in simulation and with a real vehicle show that the developed strategy tracks a large number of trajectories with high degree of accuracy, safety and comfort.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2020

Model-free control for machine tools

Cascade P-PI control systems are the most widespread commercial solutions for machine tool positioning systems. However, friction, backlash and wearing effects significantly degrade their closed-loop behaviour. This works proposes a novel easy-to-tune control approach that achieves high accuracy trajectory tracking in a wide operation domain, thus being able to mitigate wear and aging effects.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2012

Low Speed Control of an Autonomous Vehicle Using a Hybrid Fractional Order Controller

Highly non-linear vehicle dynamics plays an important role in autonomous driving systems, especially in congested traffic situations at very low speeds. Due to this fact, accurate controllers are needed in order to ensure safety during navigation. In this paper, based on a previous fractional order speed control, an improved fractional order control is presented to control a commercial Citroën C3 prototype -which has automatic driving capabilities- at low speeds, which considers a hybrid model of the vehicle. Specifically, two different fractional order PIα controllers are designed to act over the throttle and brake pedals, respectively. Concerning to the uncertain dynamics of the system during the brake action parameters are tuned to design a robust controller. In addition, the system is modeled as hybrid fractional order differential inclusions. Experimental and simulation results, obtained in a real circuit, are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategies for cruise control at low speeds.

nlin.AO↗