A Review of Shared Control for Automated Vehicles: Theory and Applications

The last decade has shown an increasing interest on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) based on shared control, where automation is continuously supporting the driver at the control level with an adaptive authority. A first look at the literature offers two main research directions: 1) an ongoing effort to advance the theoretical comprehension of shared control, and 2) a diversity of automotive system applications with an increasing number of works in recent years. Yet, a global synthesis on these efforts is not available. To this end, this article covers the complete field of shared control in automated vehicles with an emphasis on these aspects: 1) concept, 2) categories, 3) algorithms, and 4) status of technology. Articles from the literature are classified in theory- and application-oriented contributions. From these, a clear distinction is found between coupled and uncoupled shared control. Also, model-based and model-free algorithms from these two categories are evaluated separately with a focus on systems using the steering wheel as the control interface. Model-based controllers tested by at least one real driver are tabulated to evaluate the performance of such systems. Results show that the inclusion of a driver model helps to reduce the conflicts at the steering. Also, variables such as driver state, driver effort, and safety indicators have a high impact on the calculation of the authority. Concerning the evaluation, driver-in-the-loop simulators are the most common platforms, with few works performed in real vehicles. Implementation in experimental vehicles is expected in the upcoming years.This work was supported in part by the ECSEL Joint Undertaking, which funded the PRYSTINE project under Grant 783190, and in part by the AUTOLIB project (ELKARTEK 2019 ref. KK-2019/00035; Gobierno Vasco Dpto. Desarrollo económico e infraestructuras)

A Review of Shared Control for Automated Vehicles: Theory and Applications

The last decade has shown an increasing interest on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) based on shared control, where automation is continuously supporting the driver at the control level with an adaptive authority. A first look at the literature offers two main research directions: 1) an ongoing effort to advance the theoretical comprehension of shared control, and 2) a diversity of automotive system applications with an increasing number of works in recent years. Yet, a global synthesis on these efforts is not available. To this end, this article covers the complete field of shared control in automated vehicles with an emphasis on these aspects: 1) concept, 2) categories, 3) algorithms, and 4) status of technology. Articles from the literature are classified in theory- and application-oriented contributions. From these, a clear distinction is found between coupled and uncoupled shared control. Also, model-based and model-free algorithms from these two categories are evaluated separately with a focus on systems using the steering wheel as the control interface. Model-based controllers tested by at least one real driver are tabulated to evaluate the performance of such systems. Results show that the inclusion of a driver model helps to reduce the conflicts at the steering. Also, variables such as driver state, driver effort, and safety indicators have a high impact on the calculation of the authority. Concerning the evaluation, driver-in-the-loop simulators are the most common platforms, with few works performed in real vehicles. Implementation in experimental vehicles is expected in the upcoming years

Shared control strategies for automated vehicles

188 p.Los vehículos automatizados (AVs) han surgido como una solución tecnológica para compensar las deficiencias de la conducción manual. Sin embargo, esta tecnología aún no está lo suficientemente madura para reemplazar completamente al conductor, ya que esto plantea problemas técnicos, sociales y legales. Sin embargo, los accidentes siguen ocurriendo y se necesitan nuevas soluciones tecnológicas para mejorar la seguridad vial. En este contexto, el enfoque de control compartido, en el que el conductor permanece en el bucle de control y, junto con la automatización, forma un equipo bien coordinado que colabora continuamente en los niveles táctico y de control de la tarea de conducción, es una solución prometedora para mejorar el rendimiento de la conducción manual aprovechando los últimos avances en tecnología de conducción automatizada. Esta estrategia tiene como objetivo promover el desarrollo de sistemas de asistencia al conductor más avanzados y con mayor grade de cooperatición en comparación con los disponibles en los vehículos comerciales. En este sentido, los vehículos automatizados serán los supervisores que necesitan los conductores, y no al revés. La presente tesis aborda en profundidad el tema del control compartido en vehículos automatizados, tanto desde una perspectiva teórica como práctica. En primer lugar, se proporciona una revisión exhaustiva del estado del arte para brindar una descripción general de los conceptos y aplicaciones en los que los investigadores han estado trabajando durante lasúltimas dos décadas. Luego, se adopta un enfoque práctico mediante el desarrollo de un controlador para ayudar al conductor en el control lateral del vehículo. Este controlador y su sistema de toma de decisiones asociado (Módulo de Arbitraje) se integrarán en el marco general de conducción automatizada y se validarán en una plataforma de simulación con conductores reales. Finalmente, el controlador desarrollado se aplica a dos sistemas. El primero para asistir a un conductor distraído y el otro en la implementación de una función de seguridad para realizar maniobras de adelantamiento en carreteras de doble sentido. Al finalizar, se presentan las conclusiones más relevantes y las perspectivas de investigación futuras para el control compartido en la conducción automatizada

OECD reviews of higher education in regional and city development, State of Victoria, Australia

With more than 5.3 million inhabitants Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Once a manufacturing economy, Victoria is now transforming itself into a service and innovation-based economy. Currently, the largest sectors are education services and tourism. In terms of social structure, Victoria is characterised by a large migrant population, 24% of population were born overseas and 44% were either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas. About 70% of the population resides in Melbourne. Victoria faces a number of challenges, ranging from an ageing population and skills shortages to drought and climate change and increased risk of natural disasters. Rapid population growth, 2% annually, has implications for service delivery and uneven development as well as regional disparities. There are barriers to connectivity in terms of transport and infrastructure, and a high degree of inter-institutional competition in tertiary education sector. The business structure in Victoria includes some highly innovative activities such as in biotechnology, but other sectors, especially those with high number of small and medium-sized enterprises, are lagging behind. Most of the larger manufacturing enterprises are externally controlled and there is uncertainty over the long term investments they will make in the state, as well as the place of Victoria in the global production networks

A Virtual Platform for Improving Coordination and Promoting Cooperation on Traffic Safety

ABSTRACTSuccessful management of traffic safety requires effective community participation in the process of traffic awareness, planning and management along with the executive bodies concerned with traffic planning and management. Just as important to reinforcing a shared vision among people and management bodies is the idea of people participation in decision-making. There is a strong need for cooperation among traffic users, planners and managers. Traffic users play a significant role in running the traffic and have been vocal about management issues. Users should be encouraged to be as involved and active as possible in all decisions that affect their traffic safety. Community Corporations go further and encourage participation by forming user organizations. Encouraging user participation also requires training for oversight and conflict resolution, in order to work through unresolved problems. It is also as important that users should try out their ideas in an open exchange, see how the ideas fare; and hopefully, the best ones will survive and users learn through each other. Therefore, there is a great need to provide users, traffic planners and managers with a platform that fosters such activities and allows traffic users to discuss, report and document their views, events, experiences related to their traffic safety, i.e. report on faults, cracks, breakdown, damages, etc. Making a good use of such data can substantially assist in improving the operation and management of traffic safety. Virtual environments can provide traffic users, planners and managers with an atmosphere to participate in a computer generated world. Virtual environments run on multiple processes in which information are shared among processes. Traffic users, planners and managers will be able to visualize and navigate the virtual traffic modeled in distributed virtual environments. Traffic management is essential to achieve better reliability and availability of traffic safety. It is important to minimize the obstacles that will impact the successful achievement of traffic safety. This paper proposes a virtual platform for encouraging users' participation in traffic safety in terms of awareness, operation and management developed and to be implemented in an interactive 3D virtual environment. This virtual environment promotes multiple participants and can be remotely accessed synchronously by different users within 3D object-oriented virtual models while they are aware of the presence of others and communicate with them. This virtual environment encourages users, planners and managers to participate in fostering the sense of community partnership and shared responsibility, while traffic managers will benefit from the users' views

PLATO: A Coordination Framework for Designers of Multi-Player Real-Time Games

Player coordination is a key element in many multi-player real-time digital games and cooperative real-time multi-player modes are now common in many digital-game genres. Coordination is an important part of the design of these games for several reasons: coordination can change the game balance and the level of difficulty as different types and degrees of coordination can make the game easier or more difficult; coordination is an important part of ‘playing like a team’ which affects the quality of play; and coordination as a shared activity is a key to sociality that can add to the sociability of the game. Being able to exercise control over the design of these coordination requirements is an important part of developing successful games. However, it is currently difficult to understand, describe, analyze or design coordination requirements in game situations, because current frameworks and theories do not mesh with the realities of video game design. I developed a new framework (called PLATO) that can help game designers to understand, describe, design and manipulate coordination episodes. The framework deals with five atomic aspects of coordinated activity: Players, Locations, Actions, Time, and Objects. PLATO provides a vocabulary, methodology and diagram notation for describing and analyzing coordination. I demonstrate the framework’s utility by describing coordination situations from existing games, and by showing how PLATO can be used to understand and redesign coordination requirements

Two Sides of the Same Coin? Insights on Motivational Information Systems and Goal Achievement From a User and Firm Perspective

Immer mehr Menschen integrieren Motivationale Informationssysteme (z. B. Ernährungs- Apps, Fitness-Tracker oder Webseiten zur Selbstoptimierung) in ihren Alltag. Solche Systeme nutzen Designprinzipien von hedonischen Diensten (wie z. B. Spielen und sozialen Netzwerken), um den Nutzern eine motivationale Unterstützung zu bieten und das System-Engagement zu erhöhen. Folglich versprechen Motivationale Informationssysteme, eine Win-Win-Situation für ihre Anbieter und Nutzer zu schaffen, indem sie die Ziele beider Stakeholder erfüllen. Die vorliegende Arbeit widmet sich den Fragen, ob Motivationale Informationssysteme tatsächlich die Erreichung von Benutzer- und Unternehmenszielen unterstützen und wie sie das Benutzerverhalten beeinflussen. Die in dieser Dissertation enthaltenen Artikel beleuchten diese Forschungsfragen, indem sie den Einfluss verschiedener Arten von Systemdesign (z. B. soziale Interdependenzstrukturen) und durch Systemnutzung geförderte Erlebnisse (z. B. eigene Weiterentwicklung, sozialer Vergleich) auf nutzer- (z. B. Engagement) und unternehmensgewinnbringende Verhaltensweisen (z. B. Zahlungsbereitschaft, Weiterempfehlungen) sowie deren Folgen (z. B. Leistungssteigerung, Wohlbefinden) unter Berücksichtigung verschiedener psychologischer Prozesse (z. B. Regulationsstile, Zielorientierungen) untersuchen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, über verschiedene Dienstleistungskontexte hinweg, dass Motivationale Informationssysteme zwar meist die Ziele von Nutzern und Unternehmen unterstützen, jedoch auch unerwartete negative Effekte mit dem Einsatz von Motivationalen Informationssystemen einhergehen können. Darüber hinaus können Motivationale Informationssysteme Aktivitäten "unterhaltsamer" machen, indem sie menschlichen Grundbedürfnisse befriedigen, sie können aber auch ungewollten "Leistungsdruck" auf ihre Benutzer ausüben. Zusammenfassend zeigen die in dieser Arbeit dargelegten Ergebnisse, dass Motivationale Informationssysteme ihr Versprechen einlösen können, eine Win-Win-Situation für alle Stakeholder zu schaffen.More and more people are integrating motivational information systems (e.g., nutrition apps, fitness trackers or self-improvement websites) in their everyday lives. Such systems utilize design principles from hedonic services (i.e., games and social networks) to provide users with motivational support and enhance system engagement. Accordingly, motivational information systems promise to create a win-win situation for their providers and users in which they fulfill the goals of both stakeholders. This thesis is devoted to reveal whether motivational information systems actually support the achievement of user and firm goals and how they drive user behavior. The included articles in this dissertation shed light on these questions by examining the impact of different types of system design (e.g., social interdependence structures) and motivational information system-facilitated user experiences (e.g., self-development, social comparison) on user-beneficial (e.g., engagement) and firm-beneficial behaviors (e.g., willingness to pay more, word-of-mouth) as well as their outcomes (e.g., performance, well-being) under the consideration of different psychological processes (e.g., regulation styles, goal orientations). The findings across various service contexts reveal that while motivational information systems mostly support user and firm goals, unexpected downside effects can reside with their use. Furthermore, motivational information systems are likely to make activities “fun” by satisfying users’ inherent human desires, but they can also “pressure” their users to perform. In sum, the findings presented in this thesis show that motivational information systems can fulfill their promise to create a win-win situation for all stakeholders.2021-03-1

Drivers of Intermodal Rail Freight Growth in North America

Intermodal rail freight service, in the form of semi-trailers and containers carried by rail in coordination with connecting road and water transport operators, emerged in North America on a few railways during the 1920s and 1930s. Experience gained from these early ventures inspired widespread introduction of intermodal service offerings after 1950. Between 1990 and 2005, rail intermodal traffic grew 87.7 percent, from 6.2 million to 11.7 containers and trailers, and now holds a significant position in the aggregate traffic base of the major North American rail freight carriers. Previous research and other sources of data and information are drawn upon to identify key drivers of this growth within the context of a conceptual model. The driving forces include changes in transport providers’ business policies and practices, government deregulation of pricing and other commercial actions by firms in rail and competing modes of transport, advancements in rail intermodal technology, and changes in supply chain management processes by shippers and consignees that have intensified demand for freight service of higher quality and lower cost. Comments on transferability to Europe of lessons learned from intermodal business experience in North America are provided in the concluding section