Optimal velocity planning for autonomous vehicles considering curvature constraints

The paper addresses a velocity planning problem for autonomous vehicles. Appropriate bounds on velocities and accelerations have to be considered in order to avoid wheels skidding and actuators saturation. Planned profiles fulfill an assigned travelling time, while longitudinal jerk is minimized in order to increase the motion smoothness. In the paper it is shown that the velocity planning problem can be formulated as a nonlinear semi-infinite optimization to be solved in real time by means of an appositely devised algorithm characterized by a light computational burden.