Velocity Optimization in Connected Autonomous Vehicles and its Impact on Surrounding Traffic

Connected Autonomous Vehicles are equipped with the capabilities of autonomous navigation, Vehicle to Vehicle, and Vehicle to Infrastructure communication, which have the potential to improve fuel and/ or energy efficiency. Velocity optimization is a driving technique that aims to follow a velocity profile that minimizes fuel consumption, energy consumption, idling at traffic lights, and overall trip time. Velocity optimization can be implemented in CAVs by utilizing V2I and V2V capabilities, and optimal control techniques.As CAVs become more ubiquitous, they are likely to interact closely with human driven cars. In such a scenario, it is important to find the right trade-off between safety and efficiency, as safety constraints may restrict efficient actions and vice-versa. Vehicle control systems that are heavily biased towards efficiency, may result in conservativeness and rear-ending effects in CAVs, rendering their behavior unpredictable for human drivers, which may result in collisions, compromise safety and obstruct the surrounding traffic. Through this research, we have proposed a velocity optimization strategy that optimizes the velocity profile for fuel consumption, without significantly compromising safety and affecting the traffic flow. A Model Predictive Controller is designed to compute the optimal velocity profile based on fuel consumption and impact to the surrounding traffic. A mathematical control parameter is introduced for deterministic control of impact on traffic flow. An iterative convex optimization approach is adopted for online solution of the optimal control problem. A simulation case study is presented to demonstrate fuel saving capability and reduced impact on the surrounding traffic flow, of the proposed control system

Multicriteria cruise control design considering geographic and traffic conditions

The paper presents the design of cruise control systems considering road and traffic information during the design of speed trajectories. Several factors are considered such as road inclinations, traffic lights, preceding vehicles, speed limits, engine emissions and travel times. The purpose of speed design is to reduce longitudinal energy, fuel consumption and engine emissions without a significant increase in travel time. The signals obtained from the road and traffic are handled jointly with the dynamic equations of the vehicle and built into the control design of reference speed. A robust H∞ control is designed to achieve the speed of the cruise control, guaranteeing the robustness of the system against disturbances and uncertainties

Federated Robust Embedded Systems: Concepts and Challenges

The development within the area of embedded systems (ESs) is moving rapidly, not least due to falling costs of computation and communication equipment. It is believed that increased communication opportunities will lead to the future ESs no longer being parts of isolated products, but rather parts of larger communities or federations of ESs, within which information is exchanged for the benefit of all participants. This vision is asserted by a number of interrelated research topics, such as the internet of things, cyber-physical systems, systems of systems, and multi-agent systems. In this work, the focus is primarily on ESs, with their specific real-time and safety requirements. While the vision of interconnected ESs is quite promising, it also brings great challenges to the development of future systems in an efficient, safe, and reliable way. In this work, a pre-study has been carried out in order to gain a better understanding about common concepts and challenges that naturally arise in federations of ESs. The work was organized around a series of workshops, with contributions from both academic participants and industrial partners with a strong experience in ES development. During the workshops, a portfolio of possible ES federation scenarios was collected, and a number of application examples were discussed more thoroughly on different abstraction levels, starting from screening the nature of interactions on the federation level and proceeding down to the implementation details within each ES. These discussions led to a better understanding of what can be expected in the future federated ESs. In this report, the discussed applications are summarized, together with their characteristics, challenges, and necessary solution elements, providing a ground for the future research within the area of communicating ESs