Pinwheel Scheduling for Fault-tolerant Broadcast Disks in Real-time Database Systems

The design of programs for broadcast disks which incorporate real-time and fault-tolerance requirements is considered. A generalized model for real-time fault-tolerant broadcast disks is defined. It is shown that designing programs for broadcast disks specified in this model is closely related to the scheduling of pinwheel task systems. Some new results in pinwheel scheduling theory are derived, which facilitate the efficient generation of real-time fault-tolerant broadcast disk programs.National Science Foundation (CCR-9308344, CCR-9596282

Experimental verification of vehicle platoon control algorithms

Organizing a group of vehicles into a vehicle platoon in a way that, except for the leading vehicle, each platoon member can be autonomously driven has been a research goal for decades. Among other benefits this results in a decrease of fuel consump- tion and also in the driver’s workload and an increase in a better use of road capacity. The recent developments in the area of ac- tive control systems for vehicles make it possible to realize more and more autonomous functions and the above defined cooper- ation between vehicles seems to be increasingly feasible. This article aims to point out that today it is possible to reach this goal without vehicle specific software and hardware

An intelligent anti-collision system for electric vehicles applications

This paper presents the initial outcomes of the ongoing research to develop an intelligent online fault monitoring and anti-collision system for electric vehicle industrial applications. This is aiming to utilise the latest development in sensors technology and multi-level of redundancy approach, to improve the safety of electric vehicle and minimize the risk of road collision. This paper is focused on the development of the anti-collision system. The system is a network of sensors utilising the near real time embedded system. Four operational conditions were considered and some activities have been taken to control the speed and steering control system of the vehicle at an imminent collision. Visual alerts using LEDs were developed to indicate vehicles or obstacles along the path of the host vehicle even at an opposite direction. The proposed system was tested indoor using offshelf mini vehicle model and further field test have been planned to ensure the operability of the system in relevant applications. Research is still undertaken to develop the online fault detection, monitoring and online recovery tolerance system using multi-level of redundancy and a hot-standby dual control unit

Wireless vehicular communications for automatic incident detection and recovery

Incident detection is the process by which an incident is brought to the attention of traffic operators in order to design and activate a response plan. To minimize the detection time is crucial to mitigate the incident severity for victims as well to reduce the risk of secondary crashes. Automated incident information dissemination and traffic conditions is useful to alert in-route drivers to decide alternative routes on unexpected traffic congestion and may be also used for the incident recovery process, namely to optimize the response plan including the “nearest” rescue teams, thereby shortening their response times. Wireless vehicular communications, notably the emergent IEEE 802.11p protocol, is the enabling technology providing timely, dependable and secure properties that are essential for the devised target application. However, there are still some open issues with vehicular communications that require further research efforts. This paper presents an overview of the state of the art in wireless vehicular communications and describes the field operational tests proposed within the scope of the upcoming FP7 project ICSI - Intelligent Cooperative Sensing for Improved traffic efficiency

The Car and The Cloud: Automotive Architectures for 2020

Three trends are emerging in drivers’ expectations for their vehicle: (1) continuous connectivity with both the infrastructure (e.g., smart traffic intersections) and other commuters, (2) enhanced levels of productivity and entertainment for the duration of travel, and (3) reduction in cognitive load through semiautonomous operation and automated congestion-aware route planning. To address these demands, vehicles should become more programmable so that almost every aspect of engine control, cabin comfort, connectivity, navigation, and safety will be remotely upgradable and designed to evolve over the lifetime of the vehicle. Progress toward the vehicle of the future will entail new approaches in the design and sustainability of vehicles so that they are connected to networked traffic systems and are programmable over the course of their lifetime. To that end, our automotive research team at the University of Pennsylvania is devel- oping an in-vehicle programmable system, AutoPlug, an automotive architecture for remote diagnostics, testing, and code updates for dispatch from a datacenter to vehicle electronic controller units. For connected vehicles, we are implementing a networked vehicle platform, GrooveNet, that allows communication between real and simulated vehicles to evaluate the feasibility and application of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication; the focus in this paper is on its application to safety. Finally, we are working on a tool for large-scale traffic congestion analysis, AutoMatrix, capable of simulating over 16 million vehicles on any US street map and computing real-time fastest paths for a large subset of vehicles. The tools and platforms described here are free and open-source from the author

Adoption of vehicular ad hoc networking protocols by networked robots

This paper focuses on the utilization of wireless networking in the robotics domain. Many researchers have already equipped their robots with wireless communication capabilities, stimulated by the observation that multi-robot systems tend to have several advantages over their single-robot counterparts. Typically, this integration of wireless communication is tackled in a quite pragmatic manner, only a few authors presented novel Robotic Ad Hoc Network (RANET) protocols that were designed specifically with robotic use cases in mind. This is in sharp contrast with the domain of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). This observation is the starting point of this paper. If the results of previous efforts focusing on VANET protocols could be reused in the RANET domain, this could lead to rapid progress in the field of networked robots. To investigate this possibility, this paper provides a thorough overview of the related work in the domain of robotic and vehicular ad hoc networks. Based on this information, an exhaustive list of requirements is defined for both types. It is concluded that the most significant difference lies in the fact that VANET protocols are oriented towards low throughput messaging, while RANET protocols have to support high throughput media streaming as well. Although not always with equal importance, all other defined requirements are valid for both protocols. This leads to the conclusion that cross-fertilization between them is an appealing approach for future RANET research. To support such developments, this paper concludes with the definition of an appropriate working plan