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Advancements in Motion Planning and Control for Autonomous Vehicles

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Robotics and Automation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 July 2025) | Viewed by 555

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Interests: motion planning; computational optimal control; machine learning; energy management

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Guest Editor
Energy Department, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: energy management; numerical simulation; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Autonomous vehicles are increasingly tasked with performing complex operations in dynamic and uncertain environments. The effective functioning of these systems relies on the seamless integration of motion planning and control modules, which enable safe, efficient, and reliable autonomous behavior. When optimally designed, these modules account for a diverse range of real-world variables and can be fine-tuned to achieve performance goals, such as energy efficiency, reduced operational time, user comfort, and minimization of wear on system components.

This Special Issue invites high-quality contributions that explore cutting-edge advancements in the design, implementation, and evaluation of motion planning and control methodologies. We welcome innovative approaches that address data-driven methods, which partially or entirely replace conventional autonomous software pipelines, as well as control strategies for systems within autonomous vehicles that cooperate with motion planning and control. Submissions presenting promising methodologies, supported by robust experimental validation or demonstrating potential for near-term real-world applications, will be given particular consideration.

Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Path, trajectory, and motion planning;
  • Path, trajectory, and motion control;
  • Simulation and validation of motion planning and control;
  • Real-world applications of motion planning and control;
  • End-to-end learning for autonomous vehicles;
  • Applications of large language models in autonomous vehicles;
  • Integrated planning and control frameworks;
  • Cooperative motion planning and control;
  • Energy management in autonomous vehicles;
  • Reviews of motion planning and control;
  • Reviews of control strategies applied to autonomous vehicles.

Dr. Tantan Zhang
Dr. Bai Li
Dr. Oscar Vento
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • autonomous vehicles
  • energy management
  • end-to-end learning
  • integrated planning and control
  • large language models
  • motion planning
  • optimization
  • simulation
  • trajectory planning
  • trajectory tracking and control
  • validation and evaluation

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

23 pages, 3344 KiB  
Article
Trajectory Optimization with Dynamic Drivable Corridor-Based Collision Avoidance
by Weijie Wang, Tantan Zhang, Zihan Song and Haipeng Liu
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(13), 7051; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15137051 - 23 Jun 2025
Viewed by 342
Abstract
Trajectory planning for autonomous vehicles is essential for ensuring driving safety, passenger comfort, and operational efficiency. Collision avoidance constraints introduce significant computational complexity due to their inherent non-convex and nonlinear characteristics. Previous research has proposed the drivable corridor (DC) method, which transforms complex [...] Read more.
Trajectory planning for autonomous vehicles is essential for ensuring driving safety, passenger comfort, and operational efficiency. Collision avoidance constraints introduce significant computational complexity due to their inherent non-convex and nonlinear characteristics. Previous research has proposed the drivable corridor (DC) method, which transforms complex collision avoidance constraints into linear inequalities by constructing time-varying rectangular corridors within the spatiotemporal domains, thereby enhancing optimization efficiency. However, the DC construction process involves repetitive collision detection, leading to an increased computational burden. To address this limitation, this study proposes a novel approach that integrates grid-based obstacle representation with dynamic grid merging to accelerate collision detection and dynamically constructs the DC by adaptively adjusting the expansion strategies according to available spatial dimensions. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are validated through simulation-based evaluations conducted over 100 representative scenarios characterized by diverse and unstructured environmental configurations. The simulation results indicate that, with appropriately selected grid resolutions, the proposed approach achieves up to a 60% reduction in trajectory planning time compared to conventional DC-based planners while maintaining robust performance in complex environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements in Motion Planning and Control for Autonomous Vehicles)
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