Vulnerable Road Users in Structured Environments with Responsibility-Sensitive Safety

Assuring the safety of automated vehicles (AVs) is a major challenge which must be resolved before their widespread adoption is possible. The Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS) model is a step towards this goal. RSS differentiates between structured cases considering vehicles on normal roads and unstructured cases for unmarked roads and vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians. While much of the current research in RSS addresses the first group, an analysis of the unstructured cases, especially for VRUs is still missing. Therefore, in this paper the unstructured case calculation with RSS and its usage in structured environments is analyzed with a focus on VRUs. The different kinematic behavior models are described and their parameter value ranges are discussed. Finally, by analyzing the application in common real-world scenarios, we show what is required to assure Responsibility-Sensitive Safety for VRUs.