A UML-based approach to automatic cruise control modeling for smart vehicles

According to a given control law, an automatic cruise controller (ACC) is a driver-assisting device used to control the headway with respect to the vehicle in front. However, various kinds of ACC systems with different complexity exist and a modeling and simulation platform is thus required. In order to assist design engineers in obtaining the suitable control parameters for desired performance, this paper has proposed a systematical approach to the modeling and development of an ACC simulator. In the proposed approach, the standard unified modeling language (UML) is adopted to model the system, while the Java is used to implement it. An example of an ACC system based on Proportional-Integral- Derivative (PID) design has been provided to show the practicability of the proposed method. It is believed that the approach presented in this paper would benefit application engineers in designing the automatic cruise controller.