Integer Programming Model for Automated Valet Parking

Kuna parkimine on autode hulga suurenemisega ja linnastumise tihenemisega üha keerulisem probleem, muutub selle kõrgtehnoloogiline lahendamine\n\rotstarbekaks. Üks pakutud lahendus on automaatparkla, kus autodega ei sõideta\n\roma parkimiskohta, vaid autod toimetatakse parkimiskohta ja tagasi\n\rspetsiaalsete robotite poolt. Selline kõrgtehnoloogiline lahendus annab meile\n\rpalju erinevaid optimiseerimisülesandeid ja võimalusi, millest ühte\n\rkonkreetset käsitleme käesolevas töös kasutades täisarvulise planeerimise\n\rmeetodeid, mida saab lahendada juba eksisteerivate analüütiliste lahendajatega.\n\rKäesolevas töös käsitletakse ühte kindlat võimalikku automaatparkla\n\rimplementatsiooni ja tuletatakse täisarvulise planeerimise mudel selle\n\rlahendamiseks. Varasemad teoreetilised tulemused on näidanud, et isegi\n\rlihtsustatud variandid sellest probleemist saavad olla APX-keerukusega. Kasutades Gurobi lahendajat leiti optimaalne lahendus näidisjuhtude jaoks. Mudelit võrreldi teise täisarvulise planeerimise mudeliga algoritmide ja teooria teadusgrupist, mis andis kindlust ja võrdlusmaterjali mudeli toimimiseks.As parking becomes a more and more complex problem with the number of cars and\n\rcity density, more complex solutions can be used to rectify it. One of possible\n\rsolutions for parking is automated valet parking, where cars are not driven to\n\rparking place by humans but are carried by specially designed robots. Such\n\rsolution presents us many possible optimization problems, one of which is\n\raddressed in this work using Integer Programming models, that can by solved\n\rusing off-the-shelf solvers. We look at a specific possible implementation of\n\rautomated valet parking and succesfully design an Integer Programming model to\n\rsolve it. Existing theoretical results have shown that even simplified cases of\n\rthe problem can be APX-hard. Using Gurobi,\n\roptimal solution was found for sample cases. The model is compared to another\n\rinteger programming model from Algorithms and Theory research group, which\n\rprovides comparison and verification for the model performance

Squalicum Creek Park - phase III

The principle objective of the Squalicum Creek Park project is to increase recreational opportunities in Bellingham. Specifically, more baseball fields are needed to meet the needs of the growing population

Ecosystem health: what, why, how? What potential does an ecosystem health approach have for landscape architects to achieve sustainable land-use development?

One of the main challenges in today’s society is sustainable development of our land and landscapes for people, nature and the planet. This thesis will explore healthy eco- systems, what they are and why they need to be addressed (i.e. the potential they hold) and finally how we can achieve them. It will explore how landscape architects can uti- lise landscape ecological theory to improve the ecosystem health in their work, as one approach from one scientific field. Rather than a transformation in the planning field this thesis urges the need for a systematic transformation of how we see all systems on Earth as one with sub-systems alternating its dynamic. The thesis aims at becoming a useful tool across disciplines to provide a new understanding of planet Earth and us. The objective is further to give a brief understanding of some important landscape ecological theories and principles (i.e. connectivity, corridors, barriers, heterogeneity, fragmentation) and make a deeper exploration of the sources and sinks for ecosystem health in our built landscapes. Ecosystem health was in the thesis mainly oriented on people, nature and due to the scope of landscape architecture. The innovative approach of using landscape ecological theory enabled analyses of the function of different elements as sources and sinks (i.e. how they impact the ecosystem health dynamics). This was done for different scales (regional, landscape and site-scale) and contexts (land-use types in different matrixes: urban and sub-urban, residential and industrial). To see the potential of such an appro- ach for landscape architects a system was developed to grade and map the functioning of elements as sources and sinks, and the system was tested on four Norwegian ca- se-study sites as a joint assessment to map their ecosystem health. Further, final sug- gestions were demonstrated on how the dynamics of sources and sinks could be altered by simple interventions. The system proved to be effective in mapping sources and sinks in sites on multiple scales and within the three systems. The joint assessment provided a holistic syner- gy (scales and systems) and resulted in a possible prioritization of the ultimate good and bad solutions as in common sources and sinks across the systems. Trade-offs like missing out detail when mapping and limiting the study sites to built structures were addressed in the discussion. In the thesis a new understanding of ecosystem health was proposed, the potential of ecosystem health as a more applicable approach for landsca- pe architects in the strive towards sustainability was identified and landscape ecology proved valuable as a tool to achieve healthy ecosystems. More research and testing is required but I conclude that ecosystem health is a concept that holds great potential for achieving social and environmental sustainability for the future

Risk Analysis for Smart Cities Urban Planners: Safety and Security in Public Spaces

Christopher Alexander in his famous writings "The Timeless Way of Building" and "A pattern language" defined a formal language for the description of a city. Alexander developed a generative grammar able to formally describe complex and articulated concepts of architecture and urban planning to define a common language that would facilitate both the participation of ordinary citizens and the collaboration between professionals in architectural and urban planning. In this research, a similar approach has been applied to let two domains communicate although they are very far in terms of lexicon, methodologies and objectives. These domains are urban planning, urban design and architecture, seen as the first domain both in terms of time and in terms of completeness of vision, and the one relating to the world of engineering, made by innumerable disciplines. In practice, there is a domain that defines the requirements and the overall vision (the first) and a domain (the second) which implements them with real infrastructures and systems. To put these two worlds seamlessly into communication, allowing the concepts of the first world to be translated into those of the second, Christopher Alexander’s idea has been followed by defining a common language. By applying Essence, the software engineering formal descriptive theory, using its customization rules, to the concept of a Smart City, a common language to completely trace the requirements at all levels has been defined. Since the focus was on risk analysis for safety and security in public spaces, existing risk models have been considered, evidencing a further gap also within the engineering world itself. Depending on the area being considered, risk management models have different and siloed approaches which ignore the interactions of one type of risk with the others. To allow effective communication between the two domains and within the engineering domain, a unified risk analysis framework has been developed. Then a framework (an ontology) capable of describing all the elements of a Smart City has been developed and combined with the common language to trace the requirements. Following the philosophy of the Vienna Circle, a creative process called Aufbau has then been defined to allow the generation of a detailed description of the Smart City, at any level, using the common language and the ontology above defined. Then, the risk analysis methodology has been applied to the city model produced by Aufbau. The research developed tools to apply such results to the entire life cycle of the Smart City. With these tools, it is possible to understand how much a given architectural, urban planning or urban design requirement is operational at a given moment. In this way, the narration can accurately describe how much the initial requirements set by architects, planners and urban designers and, above all, the values required by stakeholders, are satisfied, at any time. The impact of this research on urban planning is the ability to create a single model between the two worlds, leaving everyone free to express creativity and expertise in the appropriate forms but, at the same time, allowing both to fill the communication gap existing today. This new way of planning requires adequate IT tools and takes the form, from the engineering side, of harmonization of techniques already in use and greater clarity of objectives. On the side of architecture, urban planning and urban design, it is instead a powerful decision support tool, both in the planning and operational phases. This decision support tool for Urban Planning, based on the research results, is the starting point for the development of a meta-heuristic process using an evolutionary approach. Consequently, risk management, from Architecture/Urban Planning/Urban Design up to Engineering, in any phase of the Smart City’s life cycle, is seen as an “organism” that evolves.Christopher Alexander nei suoi famosi scritti "The Timeless Way of Building" e "A pattern language" ha definito un linguaggio formale per la descrizione di una città, sviluppando una grammatica in grado di descrivere formalmente concetti complessi e articolati di architettura e urbanistica, definendo un linguaggio comune per facilitare la partecipazione dei comuni cittadini e la collaborazione tra professionisti. In questa ricerca, un approccio simile è stato applicato per far dialogare due domini sebbene siano molto distanti in termini di lessico, metodologie e obiettivi. Essi sono l'urbanistica, l'urban design e l'architettura, visti come primo dominio sia in termini di tempo che di completezza di visione, e quello del mondo dell'ingegneria, con numerose discipline. In pratica, esiste un dominio che definisce i requisiti e la visione d'insieme (il primo) e un dominio (il secondo) che li implementa con infrastrutture e sistemi reali. Per metterli in perfetta comunicazione, permettendo di tradurre i concetti del primo in quelli del secondo, si è seguita l'idea di Alexander definendo un linguaggio. Applicando Essence, la teoria descrittiva formale dell'ingegneria del software al concetto di Smart City, è stato definito un linguaggio comune per tracciarne i requisiti a tutti i livelli. Essendo il focus l'analisi dei rischi per la sicurezza negli spazi pubblici, sono stati considerati i modelli di rischio esistenti, evidenziando un'ulteriore lacuna anche all'interno del mondo dell'ingegneria stessa. A seconda dell'area considerata, i modelli di gestione del rischio hanno approcci diversi e isolati che ignorano le interazioni di un tipo di rischio con gli altri. Per consentire una comunicazione efficace tra i due domini e all'interno del dominio dell'ingegneria, è stato sviluppato un quadro di analisi del rischio unificato. Quindi è stato sviluppato un framework (un'ontologia) in grado di descrivere tutti gli elementi di una Smart City e combinato con il linguaggio comune per tracciarne i requisiti. Seguendo la filosofia del Circolo di Vienna, è stato poi definito un processo creativo chiamato Aufbau per consentire la generazione di una descrizione dettagliata della Smart City, a qualsiasi livello, utilizzando il linguaggio comune e l'ontologia sopra definita. Infine, la metodologia dell'analisi del rischio è stata applicata al modello di città prodotto da Aufbau. La ricerca ha sviluppato strumenti per applicare tali risultati all'intero ciclo di vita della Smart City. Con questi strumenti è possibile capire quanto una data esigenza architettonica, urbanistica o urbanistica sia operativa in un dato momento. In questo modo, la narrazione può descrivere con precisione quanto i requisiti iniziali posti da architetti, pianificatori e urbanisti e, soprattutto, i valori richiesti dagli stakeholder, siano soddisfatti, in ogni momento. L'impatto di questa ricerca sull'urbanistica è la capacità di creare un modello unico tra i due mondi, lasciando ognuno libero di esprimere creatività e competenza nelle forme appropriate ma, allo stesso tempo, permettendo ad entrambi di colmare il gap comunicativo oggi esistente. Questo nuovo modo di progettare richiede strumenti informatici adeguati e si concretizza, dal lato ingegneristico, in un'armonizzazione delle tecniche già in uso e in una maggiore chiarezza degli obiettivi. Sul versante dell'architettura, dell'urbanistica e del disegno urbano, è invece un potente strumento di supporto alle decisioni, sia in fase progettuale che operativa. Questo strumento di supporto alle decisioni per la pianificazione urbana, basato sui risultati della ricerca, è il punto di partenza per lo sviluppo di un processo meta-euristico utilizzando un approccio evolutivo

Software architectural design for safety in Automated Parking System

The automotive industry has seen a revolution brought about by self-driving cars. However, one of the main challenges facing autonomous driving systems is ensuring safety in the absence of a supervising driver and verifying safe vehicle behaviour under various circumstances. Autonomous Driving Systems (ADS), due to their complexity, cannot be solved straightforwardly without proper structure. Thus, they need a well-defined architecture to guide their development with requirements that involve modularity, scalability, and maintainability among other properties. To help overcome some of the challenges, this master thesis defines and implements in a simulated environment an automated parking system that complies with industrial and safety standards. The work has been divided into four parts. Firstly, the safety rules for the development of an autonomous function have been analysed. Secondly, the use cases and system requirements have been defined following the needs of the automated parking system. Thirdly, the system has been implemented in the simulation environment with a structure based on a widely adopted automotive standard. The final result is the software architecture of an autonomous vehicle with automated parking functionality. This concept has been validated within the virtual environment together with the integration of the AUTOSAR runtime environment, which the communication between components and mode switching functionality in the CARLA simulation environment. The result of this project shows the benefit of integrating architecture and simulation, thus easing the development and testing of future autonomous systems

Reinforcement learning and planning for autonomous agent navigation:With a focus on sparse reward settings

Being able to navigate our surroundings enables us humans to freely interact with our environment and is therefore an important skill for truly autonomous technical systems as well. The machine learning paradigm of reinforcement learning (RL) enables learning (neural network) policies for decision making through continuous interaction with the environment. However, if the rewards that are received as feedback are sparse, improving the policy gets difficult and inefficient. Therefore, this thesis focusses on improving policy learning under sparse rewards for autonomous agents tasked to reach dedicated goal locations.First, we present a novel spatial gradient (SG) strategy to select starting states at the boundary of the agents’ capabilities, which results in a curriculum that improves learning progress.Afterwards, we combine planning over abstract sub-goals with reinforcement learning to obtain policies to reach these sub-goals. The resulting sub-tasks make policy learning easier.We first present our hierarchical VI-RL policy architecture that utilizes a learned transition model for planning, which captures agent capabilities and enables generalization.Subsequently, we improve efficiency and performance of the sub-goal planning by learning to locally refine simple shortest path plans based on detailed local state information. Our proposed RL-trained Value Refinement Network (VRN) architecture additionally enables navigating dynamic environments without repeated global re-planning.Finally, we address the practically relevant setting where continuous environment interaction is not possible. Our HORIBLe-VRN algorithm allows to learn our hierarchical planning-based policies from pre-collected data, incorporating latent sub-goal inference as well as offline RL to improve over sub-optimal demonstrations

Reference Model and Architecture for the Post-Platform Economy

The primary goal of this thesis is to propose a reference model and an accompanying software system architecture, which together can serve as a guiding framework for the analysis, design, and implementation of distributed market spaces. The benefit of such a framework is considered two-fold: On the one hand, it provides insights essential for understanding various aspects and elements of self-organized and strictly decentralized online structures to facilitate the emergence of the post-platform economy. On the other hand, it serves as a blueprint for designing and implementing a distributed marketplace instance for a specific application context. It thus allows consumers and providers to set up and expand market spaces themselves, in which they can engage directly and reliably with complex product scenarios