http://wpage.unina.it/valerio.persico/pubs/CloudIoT_FGCS.pdf

Integration of Cloud computing and Internet of Things

Intelligent vehicles have increased their capabilities for highly and, even fully, automated driving under controlled environments. Scene information is received using onboard sensors and communication network systems, i.e., infrastructure and other vehicles. Considering the available information, different motion planning and control techniques have been implemented to autonomously driving on complex environments. The main goal is focused on executing strategies to improve safety, comfort, and energy optimization. However, research challenges such as navigation in urban dynamic environments with obstacle avoidance capabilities, i.e., vulnerable road users (VRU) and vehicles, and cooperative maneuvers among automated and semi-automated vehicles still need further efforts for a real environment implementation. This paper presents a review of motion planning techniques implemented in the intelligent vehicles literature. A description of the technique used by research teams, their contributions in motion planning, and a comparison among these techniques is also presented. Relevant works in the overtaking and obstacle avoidance maneuvers are presented, allowing the understanding of the gaps and challenges to be addressed in the next years. Finally, an overview of future research direction and applications is given.

A Review of Motion Planning Techniques for Automated Vehicles

Safety critical systems involve the tight coupling between potentially conflicting control objectives and safety constraints. As a means of creating a formal framework for controlling systems of this form, and with a view toward automotive applications, this paper develops a methodology that allows safety conditions—expressed as control barrier functions —to be unified with performance objectives—expressed as control Lyapunov functions—in the context of real-time optimization-based controllers. Safety conditions are specified in terms of forward invariance of a set, and are verified via two novel generalizations of barrier functions; in each case, the existence of a barrier function satisfying Lyapunov-like conditions implies forward invariance of the set, and the relationship between these two classes of barrier functions is characterized. In addition, each of these formulations yields a notion of control barrier function (CBF), providing inequality constraints in the control input that, when satisfied, again imply forward invariance of the set. Through these constructions, CBFs can naturally be unified with control Lyapunov functions (CLFs) in the context of a quadratic program (QP); this allows for the achievement of control objectives (represented by CLFs) subject to conditions on the admissible states of the system (represented by CBFs). The mediation of safety and performance through a QP is demonstrated on adaptive cruise control and lane keeping, two automotive control problems that present both safety and performance considerations coupled with actuator bounds.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ielaam/9/7993115/7782377-aam.pdf

Control Barrier Function Based Quadratic Programs for Safety Critical Systems

The introduction of connected and autonomous vehicles will bring changes to the highway driving environment. Connected vehicle technology provides real-time information about the surrounding traffic condition and the traffic management center’s decisions. Such information is expected to improve drivers’ efficiency, response, and comfort while enhancing safety and mobility. Connected vehicle technology can also further increase efficiency and reliability of autonomous vehicles, though these vehicles could be operated solely with their on-board sensors, without communication. While several studies have examined the possible effects of connected and autonomous vehicles on the driving environment, most of the modeling approaches in the literature do not distinguish between connectivity and automation, leaving many questions unanswered regarding the implications of different contemplated deployment scenarios. There is need for a comprehensive acceleration framework that distinguishes between these two technologies while modeling the new connected environment. This study presents a framework that utilizes different models with technology-appropriate assumptions to simulate different vehicle types with distinct communication capabilities. The stability analysis of the resulting traffic stream behavior using this framework is presented for different market penetration rates of connected and autonomous vehicles. The analysis reveals that connected and autonomous vehicles can improve string stability. Moreover, automation is found to be more effective in preventing shockwave formation and propagation under the model’s assumptions. In addition to stability, the effects of these technologies on throughput are explored, suggesting substantial potential throughput increases under certain penetration scenarios.

Influence of connected and autonomous vehicles on traffic flow stability and throughput

Intelligent vehicle cooperation based on reliable communication systems contributes not only to reducing traffic accidents but also to improving traffic flow. Adaptive cruise control (ACC) systems can gain enhanced performance by adding vehicle-vehicle wireless communication to provide additional information to augment range sensor data, leading to cooperative ACC (CACC). This paper presents the design, development, implementation, and testing of a CACC system. It consists of two controllers, one to manage the approaching maneuver to the leading vehicle and the other to regulate car-following once the vehicle joins the platoon. The system has been implemented on four production Infiniti M56s vehicles, and this paper details the results of experiments to validate the performance of the controller and its improvements with respect to the commercially available ACC system.

/pdf/cooperative-adaptive-cruise-control-in-real-traffic-35mggeon75.pdf

Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control in Real Traffic Situations

This paper presents a novel extended look-ahead concept of an integrated lateral and longitudinal vehicle following controller with an orientation-error observer. The control law is based on input-output feedback to address a local tracking problem. It is known that due to the position control in the look-ahead approach, the follower vehicle may cut corners. To address this problem, a reference-induced extended look-ahead tracking point is introduced such that the cutting-corner is compensated. Moreover, the stability of the internal dynamics is analyzed. To address the situation where the orientation tracking error is not measurable or corrupted by noise, an orientation-error observer, constructed from the position tracking error, is designed. The performance of the extended look-ahead controller and the orientation-error observer is investigated by means of a simulation study, and validated with experiments on a mobile robot platform.

/pdf/extended-look-ahead-tracking-controller-with-orientation-1jwoq3784y.pdf

Extended Look-Ahead Tracking Controller With Orientation-Error Observer for Vehicle Platooning

A signalling apparatus for a motor vehicle is provided with communication means for receiving information coming from another motor vehicle and for broadcasting information intended for a nearby motor vehicle, and with sensor means for providing information about the status or a status change of the respective motor vehicle with regard to at least the safety of this vehicle. A computer is present for determining, on the ground of the information coming from the sensor means and/or on the ground of the received information, information to be broadcast and further action signals. In addition, means are present to enable, on the ground of the action signals, realization of a status change of the respective motor vehicle, which means are formed by a signalling element for making observable a signalling knowable for the driver of the vehicle or of a nearby vehicle.

Vehicle signaling device

https://pure.tue.nl/ws/files/3455736/379848393573509.pdf

VEHIL: A Test Facility for Validation of Fault Management Systems for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

A shortcoming of many Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) schemes is the lack of a guarantee of safe vehicle behavior in a platoon, i.e., making sure that a vehicle does not collide with its preceding vehicle in case the latter performs a deceleration outside the operational range of the CACC system. To overcome that problem, this paper presents a controller design which has a Collision Avoidance (CA) functionality to guarantee safe vehicle behavior. When the vehicle is in a safe operational region, the nominal controller is applied, which can be designed independent of the CA function. However, when the nominal controller cannot guarantee a safe behavior, a predefined gradual braking strategy is imposed. Enforcing a gradual braking strategy instead of prompt full braking has the benefit that if a safety-critical situation resolves itself quickly, full braking is not applied. The controller scheme is illustrated in a simulation study, which shows that, as a result, the vehicles behave safely, even when the preceding vehicle instantly applies full braking.

Controller Design for Cooperative Driving with Guaranteed Safe Behavior

Automated vehicles (AVs) are expected to increase traffic safety and traffic efficiency, among others by enabling flexible mobilityon-demand systems. This is particularly important in Singapore, being one of the world’s most densely populated countries, which is why the Singaporean authorities are currently actively facilitating the deployment of AVs. As a consequence, however, the need arises for a formal AV road approval procedure. To this end, a safety assessment framework is proposed, which combines aspects of the standardized functional safety design methodology with a traffic scenario-based approach. The latter involves using driving data to extract AV-relevant traffic scenarios. The underlying approach is based on decomposition of scenarios into elementary events, subsequent scenario parametrization, and sampling of the estimated probability density functions of the scenario parameters to create test scenarios. The resulting test scenarios are subsequently employed for virtual testing in a simulation environment and physical testing on a proving ground and in real life. As a result, the proposed assessment pipeline thus provides statistically relevant and quantitative measures for the AV performance in a relatively short time frame due to the simulation-based approach. Ultimately, the proposed methodology provides authorities with a formal road approval procedure for AVs. In particular, the proposed methodology will support the Singaporean Land Transport Authority for road approval of AVs.

Jeroen Ploeg

Papers

Extended Look-Ahead Tracking Controller With Orientation-Error Observer for Vehicle Platooning

Vehicle signaling device

VEHIL: A Test Facility for Validation of Fault Management Systems for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

Controller Design for Cooperative Driving with Guaranteed Safe Behavior

Scenario-Based Safety Assessment Framework for Automated Vehicles