Analysis of Adaptive Cruise Control System Performance Under Nigerian Highway Driving Conditions Using Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation

Adaptive cruise control systems designed and validated for European and North American highway environments may perform inadequately under the distinct traffic behaviour, road quality, and inter-vehicle gap distribution characteristics of Nigerian highway driving, yet no published study has empirically assessed ACC performance for the Nigerian context. This study analyses ACC system performance under Nigerian highway conditions using a hardware-in-the-loop simulation approach. A driving scenario dataset representative of Nigerian federal highway driving was developed from 120 hours of instrumented vehicle speed, distance, and lane event recordings on the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna expressways. A radar-based ACC system prototype was developed using an automotive-grade radar sensor interfaced with a dSPACE MicroAutoBox II rapid control prototyping unit implementing a spacing-policy-based ACC controller. The driving scenario dataset was replayed in a hardware-in-the-loop test rig comprising a high-fidelity vehicle dynamics simulator and the physical ACC prototype. ACC longitudinal performance metrics including time headway maintenance accuracy, comfort metric jerk magnitude, and emergency braking response time were evaluated across representative scenario classes. Results show that the ACC system maintains target headway within plus or minus 0.4 seconds in 82 percent of following scenarios on the dataset but exhibits 23 percent more comfort-violating jerk events than an equivalent evaluation on a European dataset, attributable to the more aggressive cut-in and braking behaviour of Nigerian highway traffic. An adaptive headway policy calibrated to Nigerian traffic statistics improves comfort metric compliance by 18 percent. Keywords: adaptive cruise control, highway driving, hardware-in-the-loop, vehicle automation, Nigeria