Beam Tracking Strategies for 5G New Radio Networks Operating in the Millimetre Wave Bands

[ES] La llegada de la próxima generación del estándar de comunicaciones móviles, la llamada quinta generación (5G), es prácticamente una realidad. Las primeras redes comerciales han comenzado a ser desplegadas, centrándose en ofrecer altas velocidades de transferencia de datos. Sin embargo, el estándar 5G va mucho más allá y prevé dar soporte a nuevos servicios que pretenden revolucionar la sociedad. Estos nuevos servicios imponen un nivel alto de requisitos en no solo en cuanto a velocidad del tráfico de datos, sino en cuanto a latencia o número de dispositivos conectados simultáneamente. La amplia variedad de requisitos no puede ser soportada por las redes de cuarta generación (4G), por lo que se hizo necesario plantear un nuevo paradigma para las redes inalámbricas. Con la promesa de grandes cantidades de ancho de banda sin utilizar, el estándar 5G contempla utilizar frecuencias en la comúnmente conocida como banda de milimétricas (mmWave). Esta banda presenta grandes pérdidas de propagación, que se acentúan si existen bloqueos de señal. Actividades regulatorias del uso de las bandas de milimétricas atrajo el interés tanto de la industria como de la academia en plantear soluciones para dar servicio en estas bandas. En los últimos años se han presentado infinidad de trabajos basados en sistemas con múltiples antenas o MIMO, para conformar las señales transmitidas o recibidas en haces apuntando en determinadas direcciones. La ganancia que aportan los sistemas MIMO pueden compensar las altas pérdidas de propagación, asegurando la viabilidad de las comunicaciones mmWave. Se ha detectado una evidente falta de estudios sobre la viabilidad de sistemas MIMO en entornos móviles y dinámicos con bloqueos que hagan necesario que el sistema se reconfigure. Esta Tesis pretende cubrir este espacio desde un enfoque práctico y propone mecanismos de gestión de los haces para hacerles un seguimiento utilizando los recursos y mecanismos del nuevo estándar 5G. Las soluciones aportadas se basan en el uso eficiente de los reportes de medidas de las señales de referencia estandarizadas en enlace descendente. En primer lugar, esta Tesis recoge un análisis minucioso del estado del arte, donde se corrobora la necesidad de aportar soluciones de seguimiento de haces en sistemas de comunicaciones en la banda de milimétricas. Además, se estudian los diferentes mecanismos definidos en el estándar 5G y que posibilitan el seguimiento. Cabe destacar que el estándar no define un mecanismo único a seguir, permitiendo presentar propuestas. Una vez conocidas las tecnologías, se centra el estudio en el impacto del seguimiento sobre las prestaciones a nivel de red y de enlace. Dicho estudio se realiza sobre un sistema punto a punto, donde el terminal móvil se desplaza por un entorno urbano. En base a simulaciones de red, se cuantifica el índice de seguimiento de haz y de cómo dicho seguimiento afecta a la relación señal a ruido más interferencia (SINR) y la tasa de transmisión del usuario. Las soluciones de seguimiento propuestas en esta Tesis se pueden clasificar en dos categorías. En una primera categoría, se realiza el seguimiento en base a reportes de medidas de las señales de referencia. Independientemente de la velocidad, se alcanza un seguimiento del 91% con poca penalización en la tasa de transmisión si se monitorizan los haces de interés con una periodicidad menor de 20 ms. En la segunda categoría caben mecanismos de seguimiento que hacen uso de fuentes externas de información. Dentro de esta categoría, se propone un fingerprinting que relacione haces con la localización reportada y un modelo de machine learning (ML) que prediga los haces a utilizar. El fingerprinting proporciona los mismos niveles de rendimiento. Sin embargo, esta solución es muy sensible a errores y requiere considerar todos los casos posibles, lo que la hace tecnológicamente inviable. En cambio, el modelo de ML, que hace p[CA] L'arribada de la següent generació de l'estàndard de comunicacions mòbils, l'anomenada cinquena generació (5G), es pràcticament una realitat. Les primeres xarxes comercials han començat a desplegar-se i s'han centrat en oferir altes velocitats de transferència de dades. No obstant, l'estàndard 5G va molt mes allà y preveu donar suport a nous serveis que pretenen revolucionar la societat. Estos nous serveis imposen un alt nivell de requisits no sols en quant a velocitat de tràfic de dades, si no també en quant a latència o número de connexions simultànies. L'ampla varietat de requisits no es suportada per les xarxes de quarta generació (4G) actuals, per el qual es va fer necessari un nou paradigma de xarxes sense fil. Amb la promesa de amplies quantitats d'ample de banda, l'estàndard 5G contempla utilitzar freqüències a la banda de mil·limètriques. Esta banda presenta l'inconvenient d'experimentar grans pèrdues de propagació, que s'accentuen en cas de bloqueigs. L'apertura de les bandes de mil·limètriques va atraure l'interès tant de l'industria com de l'acadèmia en plantejar solucions per a donar servei en estes bandes. En els últims anys s'han presentat infinitat de treballs basats en sistemes amb múltiples antenes o MIMO, per a conformar els senyals transmesos o rebuts en feixos apuntant en determinades direccions d'interès. El guany de feix es pot utilitzar per a compensar les pèrdues de propagació, assegurant la viabilitat de les comunicacions en la banda de mil·limètriques. No obstant això, s'ha detectat una preocupant manca d'estudis sobre la viabilitat d'estos sistemes en entorns mòbils i dinàmics, amb obstacles que bloquejen els feixos i facen necessari que el sistema es reconfigure. El present treball de Tesi pretén cobrir este espai buit i des d'un punt de vista pràctic, es proposen mecanismes de gestió dels feixos per a ser el seguiment utilitzant els recursos i mecanismes dels que disposa l'estàndard 5G. D'esta manera, les solucions aportades es basen en la utilització eficient dels reports de mesures dels senyals de referència del enllaç descendent. En primer lloc, esta Tesi recull una anàlisi minuciosa de l'estat de l'art on es corrobora la necessitat de aportar solucions de seguiment de feixos per a comunicacions en la banda de freqüències mil·limètriques. A més a més, s'estudien els diferents mecanismes definits a l'estàndard 5G i que possibiliten el seguiment. Cap destacar que l'estàndard no defineix un mecanisme únic, si no que deixa la porta oberta a presentar propostes. Una vegada conegudes les tecnologies, l'estudi es centra en l'impacte del seguiment sobre les prestacions a nivell de xarxa i d'enllaç. Este estudi es realitza sobre un sistema MIMO punt a punt, en una única estació base i un terminal mòbil desplaçant-se en un entorn urbà. En base a simulacions d'extrem a extrem, es quantifica l'índex de seguiment de feix i com l'anomenat seguiment afecta a la relació senyal a soroll més interferència (SINR) i a la taxa instantània de transmissió de l'usuari. Les solucions de seguiment de feixos propostes a la Tesi es poden classificar en dos categories. A la primera categoria, el seguiment de feixos es realitza en base als reports de mesures dels senyals de referència. Independentment de la velocitat, s'arriba a una taxa de seguiment del 91% amb poca penalització de taxa de transmissió si els feixos d'interès es mesuren amb una periodicitat menor a 20 ms. A la segona categoria pertanyen els algoritmes que utilitzen fonts d'informació externes. Dins d'aquesta categoria es proposa un fingerprinting que relaciona un parell de feixos amb la ubicació de l'usuari, i a banda un model d'intel·ligència artificial (IA) que preveu el feix a utilitzar. El fingerprinting ofereix el mateix rendiment. Però, esta solució es molt sensible a errors i requereix considerar tots els casos possibles, fent-la tecnològicament inviable. En canvi, el[EN] The arrival of the next generation of mobile communication standards, the so-called Fifth Generation (5G), is already a reality. The first commercial networks have begun to be deployed, and they focus on providing higher data rates. However, the 5G standard goes much further from that and aims at providing support to new services which will revolutionise the society. These new services impose a high level of requirements not only in terms of the data traffic speed, but also in terms of very low latency or incredibly large number of simultaneous connections. This wide variety of requirements cannot be technologically supported by the current Fourth Generation (4G) networks, so it became necessary to move forward with a new paradigm for wireless networks. With the promise of large amounts of bandwidth, in the order of GHz, the 5G standard contemplates the use of frequencies in the commonly known Millimetre Wave (mmWave) band. The mmWave band experiences large propagation losses, which are accentuated in blockage events. Regulatory activities worldwide in the mmWave bands attracted the interest of both the industry and the academia. In the last few years, a tremendous number of contributions on mmWave propagation studies and networks have appeared, most of them based on Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) solutions. MIMO architectures allow to beamform, which focuses the radiated energy on certain directions of interest called beams. The additional beam gain compensates the high propagation losses, ensuring the viability of the communications in the mmWave band. There is an evident lack of viability studies of mmWave MIMO systems in mobile and highly-dynamic environments, where obstacles may block beams and forcing frequent re-configurations. This Thesis work aims to fill this gap from a practical approach. This Thesis proposes beam management mechanisms utilising the mechanisms and resources offered by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) 5G radio access standard: 5G New Radio (NR). The practical solutions are based on the efficient use of measurement reports of standardised downlink Reference Signals (RS). In first place, this Thesis provides a thorough state-of-the-art analysis and corroborates the need of adopting beam tracking solutions for mmWave networks. Then, a complete overview of the 5G standard mechanisms that enable beam tracking is given. The NR standard does not define a standardised mechanism for beam tracking, leaving the door open to proposals to carry out such monitoring. Once the technologies have been identified, the Thesis continues with assessing the impact of the beam tracking strategies on the network and link-level performance. The study is focused on individual point-to-point mmWave links in a realistic urban environment. Based on end-to-end network simulations, the Thesis is interested in assessing the beam tracking success ratio and how beam misalignment affects the perceived Signal to Noise plus Interference Ratio (SINR) and user throughput at pedestrian and vehicular speeds. The beam tracking solutions proposed in this Thesis fall into two categories. The first category monitors beams based on measuring and reporting beamformed RS. Regardless of the speed, this beam tracking category provides up to 91 % tracking performance, with little throughput reduction if the beams of interest are measured with a periodicity below 20 ms. Beam tracking in the second category relies on external information sources. Within this category, this Thesis proposes a fingerprinting database relating beams to the user position and a machine learning (ML) model. Fingerprinting beam tracking is technologically viable and provides similar performance levels. However, this solution is very sensitive to errors and requires considering all possible situations. The ML beam tracking, which makes predictions with a 16 % of estimation error for the reference data set.I want to thank the Spanish Ministry of Education and Professional Formation for funding this Thesis work with an official pre-doctoral contract grant.Herranz Claveras, C. (2019). Beam Tracking Strategies for 5G New Radio Networks Operating in the Millimetre Wave Bands [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/130845TESI

Real-Time Dynamic Map with Crowdsourcing Vehicles in Edge Computing

Autonomous driving perceives surroundings with line-of-sight sensors that are compromised under environmental uncertainties. To achieve real time global information in high definition map, we investigate to share perception information among connected and automated vehicles. However, it is challenging to achieve real time perception sharing under varying network dynamics in automotive edge computing. In this paper, we propose a novel real time dynamic map, named LiveMap to detect, match, and track objects on the road. We design the data plane of LiveMap to efficiently process individual vehicle data with multiple sequential computation components, including detection, projection, extraction, matching and combination. We design the control plane of LiveMap to achieve adaptive vehicular offloading with two new algorithms (central and distributed) to balance the latency and coverage performance based on deep reinforcement learning techniques. We conduct extensive evaluation through both realistic experiments on a small-scale physical testbed and network simulations on an edge network simulator. The results suggest that LiveMap significantly outperforms existing solutions in terms of latency, coverage, and accurac

On Adjacent Channel Interference-Aware Radio Resource Management for Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication

Safety applications play an essential role in supporting traffic safety and efficiency in next generation vehicular networks. Typical safety applications require vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication with high reliability and low latency. The reliability of a communication link is mainly determined by the received interference, and broadly speaking, there are two types of interferences: co-channel interference (CCI) and adjacent channel interference (ACI). The CCI is cross-talk between transmitters scheduled in the same time-frequency slot, whereas ACI is interference due to leakage of transmit power outside the intended frequency slot. The ACI is typically not a problem in cellular communication since interference is dominated by CCI due to spectrum re-usage. However, ACI is a significant problem in near-far situations, i.e., when the channel gain from the interferer to receiver is high compared to the channel gain from the intended transmitter. The near-far situation is more common in V2V broadcast communication scenario due to high dynamic range of the channel gain and penetration loss by intermediate vehicles. This thesis investigates the impact of ACI on V2V communication and methods to mitigate it by proper radio resource management (RRM), i.e., scheduling and power control.In [Paper A], we first study ACI models for various transmission schemes and its impact on V2V communication. We propose a problem formulation for a) optimal scheduling as a Boolean linear programming (BLP) problem and b) optimal power control as a mixed Boolean linear programming (MBLP) problem. The objective of the problem formulation is to maximize the connectivity among VUEs in the network. Near-optimal schedules and power values are computed by solving first a) and then b) for smaller size instances of the problem. To handle larger-size instances of the problem, heuristic scheduling and power control algorithms with less computational complexity are proposed. We also propose a simple distributed block interleaver scheduler (BIS), which can be used as a baseline method.In [Paper B], we formulate the joint scheduling and power control problem as an MBLP to maximize the connectivity among VUEs. A column generation method is proposed to address the scalability of the network, i.e., to reduce the computational complexity of the joint problem. Moreover, the scheduling problem is observed to be numerically sensitive due to the high dynamic range of channel values and adjacent channel interference ratio (ACIR) values. Therefore, a novel method is proposed to reduce the sensitivity and compute a numerically stable optimal solution at the price of increased computational complexity.In [Paper C], we extend the RRM problem formulation to include various objectives, such as maximizing connectivity/throughput and minimizing age of information (AoI). In order to account for the fairness, we also formulate the problem to improve the worst-case throughput, connectivity, and AoI of a link in the network. All the problems are formulated as MBLP problems. In order to support a large V2V network, a clustering algorithm is proposed whose computational complexity scale well with the network size. Moreover, a multihop distributed scheduling scheme is proposed to handle zero channel state information (CSI) case

Future Transportation

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with transportation activities account for approximately 20 percent of all carbon dioxide (co2) emissions globally, making the transportation sector a major contributor to the current global warming. This book focuses on the latest advances in technologies aiming at the sustainable future transportation of people and goods. A reduction in burning fossil fuel and technological transitions are the main approaches toward sustainable future transportation. Particular attention is given to automobile technological transitions, bike sharing systems, supply chain digitalization, and transport performance monitoring and optimization, among others

A systematic literature review on the relationship between autonomous vehicle technology and traffic-related mortality.

학위논문(석사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 행정대학원 글로벌행정전공, 2023. 2. 최태현.The society is anticipated to gain a lot from Autonomous Vehicles (AV), such as improved traffic flow and a decrease in accidents. They heavily rely on improvements in various Artificial Intelligence (AI) processes and strategies. Though some researchers in this field believe AV is the key to enhancing safety, others believe AV creates new challenges when it comes to ensuring the security of these new technology/systems and applications. The article conducts a systematic literature review on the relationship between autonomous vehicle technology and traffic-related mortality. According to inclusion and exclusion criteria, articles from EBSCO, ProQuest, IEEE Explorer, Web of Science were chosen, and they were then sorted. The findings reveal that the most of these publications have been published in advanced transport-related journals. Future improvements in the automobile industry and the development of intelligent transportation systems could help reduce the number of fatal traffic accidents. Technologies for autonomous cars provide effective ways to enhance the driving experience and reduce the number of traffic accidents. A multitude of driving-related problems, such as crashes, traffic, energy usage, and environmental pollution, will be helped by autonomous driving technology. More research is needed for the significant majority of the studies that were assessed. They need to be expanded so that they can be tested in real-world or computer-simulated scenarios, in better and more realistic scenarios, with better and more data, and in experimental designs where the results of the proposed strategy are compared to those of industry standards and competing strategies. Therefore, additional study with improved methods is needed. Another major area that requires additional research is the moral and ethical choices made by AVs. Government, policy makers, manufacturers, and designers all need to do many actions in order to deploy autonomous vehicles on the road effectively. The government should develop laws, rules, and an action plan in particular. It is important to create more effective programs that might encourage the adoption of emerging technology in transportation systems, such as driverless vehicles. In this regard, user perception becomes essential since it may inform designers about current issues and observations made by people. The perceptions of autonomous car users in developing countries like Azerbaijan haven't been thoroughly studied up to this point. The manufacturer has to fix the system flaw and needs a good data set for efficient operation. In the not-too-distant future, the widespread use of highly automated vehicles (AVs) may open up intriguing new possibilities for resolving persistent issues in current safety-related research. Further research is required to better understand and quantify the significant policy implications of Avs, taking into consideration factors like penetration rate, public adoption, technological advancements, traffic patterns, and business models. It only needs to take into account peer-reviewed, full-text journal papers for the investigation, but it's clear that a larger database and more documents would provide more results and a more thorough analysis.자율주행차(AV)를 통해 교통 흐름이 개선되고 사고가 줄어드는 등 사회가 얻는 것이 많을 것으로 예상된다. 그들은 다양한 인공지능(AI) 프로세스와 전략의 개선에 크게 의존한다. 이 분야의 일부 연구자들은 AV가 안전성을 향상시키는 열쇠라고 믿지만, 다른 연구자들은 AV가 이러한 새로운 기술/시스템 및 애플리케이션의 보안을 보장하는 것과 관련하여 새로운 문제를 야기한다고 믿는다. 이 논문은 자율주행차 기술과 교통 관련 사망률 사이의 관계에 대한 체계적인 문헌 검토를 수행한다. 포함 및 제외 기준에 따라 EBSCO, ProQuest, IEEE Explorer 및 Web of Science의 기사를 선택하고 분류했다.연구 결과는 이러한 출판물의 대부분이 고급 운송 관련 저널에 게재되었음을 보여준다. 미래의 자동차 산업의 개선과 지능형 교통 시스템의 개발은 치명적인 교통 사고의 수를 줄이는 데 도움이 될 수 있다. 자율주행 자동차 기술은 운전 경험을 향상시키고 교통 사고의 수를 줄일 수 있는 효과적인 방법을 제공한다. 충돌, 교통, 에너지 사용, 환경 오염과 같은 수많은 운전 관련 문제들은 자율 주행 기술에 의해 도움을 받을 것이다. 평가된 대부분의 연구에 대해 더 많은 연구가 필요하다. 실제 또는 컴퓨터 시뮬레이션 시나리오, 더 좋고 현실적인 시나리오, 더 좋고 더 많은 데이터, 그리고 제안된 전략 결과가 산업 표준 및 경쟁 전략의 결과와 비교되는 실험 설계에서 테스트될 수 있도록 확장되어야 한다. 따라서 개선된 방법에 대한 추가 연구가 필요하다. 추가 연구가 필요한 또 다른 주요 분야는 AV의 도덕적, 윤리적 선택이다. 정부, 정책 입안자, 제조업체 및 설계자는 모두 자율 주행 차량을 효과적으로 도로에 배치하기 위해 많은 조치를 취해야 한다. 정부는 특히 법, 규칙, 실행 계획을 개발해야 한다. 운전자 없는 차량과 같은 운송 시스템에서 새로운 기술의 채택을 장려할 수 있는 보다 효과적인 프로그램을 만드는 것이 중요하다. 이와 관련하여, 설계자에게 현재 이슈와 사람에 의한 관찰을 알려줄 수 있기 때문에 사용자 인식이 필수적이 된다.제조업체는 시스템 결함을 수정해야 하며 효율적인 작동을 위해 좋은 데이터 세트가 필요하다. 멀지 않은 미래에, 고도로 자동화된 차량(AV)의 광범위한 사용은 현재의 안전 관련 연구에서 지속적인 문제를 해결하기 위한 흥미로운 새로운 가능성을 열어줄 수 있다. 보급률, 공공 채택, 기술 발전, 교통 패턴 및 비즈니스 모델과 같은 요소를 고려하여 Avs의 중요한 정책 영향을 더 잘 이해하고 정량화하기 위한 추가 연구가 필요하다. 조사를 위해 동료 검토를 거친 전문 저널 논문만 고려하면 되지만, 데이터베이스가 커지고 문서가 많아지면 더 많은 결과와 더 철저한 분석이 제공될 것이 분명하다.Abstract 3 Table of Contents 6 List of Tables 7 List of Figures 7 List of Appendix 7 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 8 1.1. Background 8 1.2. Purpose of Research 13 CHAPTER 2: AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 21 2.1. Intelligent Traffic Systems 21 2.2. System Architecture for Autonomous Vehicles 22 2.3. Key components in AV classification 27 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE 35 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 39 4.1. RQ1: Do autonomous vehicles reduce traffic-related deaths 40 4.2. RQ2: Are there any challenges to using autonomous vehicles 63 4.3. RQ3: As a developing country, how effective is the use of autonomous vehicles for reducing traffic mortality 72 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 76 5.1. Summary 76 5.2. Implications and Recommendations 80 5.3. Limitation of the study 91 Bibliography 93 List of Tables Table 1: The 6 Levels of Autonomous Vehicles Table 2: Search strings Table 3: Inclusion and exclusion criteria List of Figures Figure 1: Traffic Death Comparison with Europe Figure 2: Research strategy and study selection process List of Appendix Appendix 1: List of selected articles석

Wireless communication methods, systems, and computer program products

A method, wireless device and computer program product for expanding the coverage of a cellular network. A wireless device (e.g., cellular telephone) is able to communicate with a base station in a cell of the cellular network over a non-cellular interface via another wireless device in a cell through the use of multi-hopping. A wireless device may request permission to communicate with the base station over a non-cellular interface via hopping off another wireless device when its signal strength is below a threshold. Alternatively, a wireless device may receive a request to communicate with the base station over a non-cellular interface via hopping off the wireless device that sent the request when that wireless device has excess capacity in its bandwidth with the base station. By enabling wireless devices to communicate with a base station in such a manner, the effective capacity of the cellular network is expanded and the effective capacity of the cellular network is improved.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Ordering Networks: Motorways and the Work of Managing Disruption

This thesis contributes to a new understanding of the motorway network and its traffic movements as a problem of practical accomplishment. It is based on a detailed ethnomethodological study of incident management in the Highways Agency’s motorway control room, which observes the methods operators use to detect, diagnose and clear incidents to accomplish safe and reliable traffic. Its main concern is how millions of vehicles can depend on the motorway network to fulfil obligations for travel when it is constantly compromised by disruption from congestion, road accidents and vehicle breakdowns. It argues that transport geography and new mobilities research have overlooked questions of practical accomplishment; they tend to treat movement as an inevitable demand, producing fixed technical solutions to optimise it, or a self-evident phenomenon, made meaningful only through the intensely human experience of mobility. In response, the frame of practical accomplishment is developed to analyse the ways in which traffic is ongoingly organised through the situated and contingent practices that take place in the control room. The point is that traffic does not move by magic; it has to be planned for, produced and persistently worked at. This is coupled with an understanding of network topology that reconsiders the motorway network as always in process by virtue of the materially heterogeneous relations it keeps, drawing attention to the intensely collaborative nature of work between operators and technology that permits the management of disruption at-a-distance and in real time. This work is by no means straightforward – the actions of monitoring, detecting, diagnosing and classifying incidents and managing traffic are revealed to be complexly situated and prone to uncertainty, requiring constant ordering work to accomplish them. In conclusion, this thesis argues for the frame of practical accomplishment to be taken seriously, rendering the work of transport networks available for sustained analysis

Strategic Planning for Connected and Automated Vehicles In Massachusetts

ISA#92312Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) technologies are evolving at a fast pace, and new developments are occurring on a daily basis. These technologies have potential to significantly change transportation and travel, to make them safer, more accessible, and more efficient than they are today. There are many issues that will have to be investigated, such as the pace and extent to which CAV technologies become pervasive, the socioeconomic impacts of CAVs, their implication on privacy and security; to what extent will these technologies replace human drivers, and the legal and regulatory responsibilities for the safe operation of CAVs. State departments of transportation (DOTs) will need to plan to prepare for and accommodate CAV technologies. The purpose of this study is to provide baseline information pertaining to strategic planning for CAV technologies in Massachusetts. This information may be used to assist the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) to develop a strategic plan to accommodate the deployment of such technologies and for related infrastructure investment decisions

Assessment of Carbon Emissions of Road Projects and Development of a Framework for Carbon Footprint Calculation of Roads in the City Of Abu Dhabi

Climate change has become a global issue affecting the environment and human health. Transportation is a major contributor of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, with road transport being responsible for more than half of these emissions. The main objective of this thesis was to estimate the carbon footprint associated with road projects in the city of Abu Dhabi following a comprehensive approach that considers all activities within the life cycle of roads. Three cases were considered including, Al Rahba City internal road network, the upgrading of Al Salam Street, and the widening of the Eastern Corniche Road. A carbon footprint estimation model (referred to as RoadCO₂) was developed to estimate GHG emissions of the three road cases. The model considers emissions from all phases of road projects and reports emissions in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂eq). The methodology suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was adopted in constructing the model. Results revealed that the total emissions from the construction of the investigated road cases are about 43, 292, and 16 thousand tons CO₂eq, respectively. Equipment used in construction contributed about 70%, 15% and 21% of the total emissions of the construction phase, respectively. The rest of the emissions during the construction phase originated from the use of construction materials and their associated transport. Upgrading of Al Salam Street project produced the highest emissions from construction materials due to the construction of a tunnel. Annual total emissions during the operation phase of Al Salam Street was estimated to be over 108 thousand tons CO₂eq/yr, whereas emissions during the operation phase for Al Rahba City internal roads were about 15 thousand tons CO₂eq/yr, and those for the Corniche Road were 91 thousand tons CO₂eq/yr. For the three cases, emissions were generated mainly during the operation phase (94% or more), with the main contributor being vehicle movement, followed to a lesser extent by street lighting