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Cooperative Vehicular Platooning (Co-VP) is a paradigmatic example of a Cooperative Cyber-Physical System (Co-CPS), which holds the potential to vastly improve road safety by partially removing humans from the driving task. However, the challenges are substantial, as the domain involves several topics, such as control theory, communications, vehicle dynamics, security, and traffic engineering, that must be coupled to describe, develop and validate these systems of systems accurately. This work presents a comprehensive survey of significant and recent advances in Co-VP relevant fields. We start by overviewing the work on control strategies and underlying communication infrastructures, focusing on their interplay. We also address a fundamental concern by presenting a cyber-security overview regarding these systems. Furthermore, we present and compare the primary initiatives to test and validate those systems, including simulation tools, hardware-in-the-loop setups, and vehicular testbeds. Finally, we highlight a few open challenges in the Co-VP domain. This work aims to provide a fundamental overview of highly relevant works on Co-VP topics, particularly by exposing their inter-dependencies, facilitating a guide that will support further developments in this challenging field.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

5G-Enabled Autonomous Platooning on Robotic Vehicle Testbed

Humanity is progressively moving towards a more intuitive and technological future. The area of Intelligent and Cooperative Transport Systems has revealed itself as one of the areas in great evolution, through technologies of autonomous driving and intravehicle communication. With the main goal of providing accident-free environments as well as optimizing the movement of vehicles on roads all over the world, Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communication is very important when it comes to all kinds of vehicular applications. The CMU|PT FLOYD project focuses on this area, with the aim of developing new systems for possible future implementation. In this report, a vehicular application using a 5G-capable module to perform Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communications was evaluated. This vehicular application is based on an emergency braking scenario, whereby detecting an approaching vehicle in a place where an accident occurred, a message is sent over the network that is picked up by the main vehicle, triggering braking. It should be noted that this sending will be made through the module with 5G capacity, thus being an innovative application. Complementary to this scenario is the tracking of a vehicle by another vehicle, thus making a more complex emergency braking application with a cooperative platoon. This platoon will be maintained through sensors present in the following vehicle, such as LiDAR and ZED camera. With this, image processing and a sensor fusion was done in order to keep the follower at a safe distance but with the ability to follow the leader. In order to validate and test this entire solution, robotic testbeds were used as a low-cost solution, allowing a concrete evaluation, with enlightening physical results of the entire application performed.A humanidade, está a caminhar, progressivamente, para um futuro mais intuitivo e tecnológico. A área dos Sistemas Inteligentes e Cooperativos de Transporte tem-se revelado como uma das áreas em grande evolução, através de tecnologias de condução autónoma e comunicação intra-veicular. Com o objetivo principal de proporcionar ambientes sem acidentes, assim como otimizar o movimento de veículos nas estradas de todo o mundo, a comunicação V2X é muito importante no que toca a todo o tipo de aplicações veiculares. O projeto CMU|PT FLOYD centra-se nesta mesma área, com o intuito de desenvolver novos sistemas de possível implementação futura. Neste relatório, é avaliada assim uma aplicação veicular utilizando um módulo com capacidade 5G para realizar comunicações V2I. Essa aplicação veicular baseiase num cenário de travagem de emergência, em que ao detetar uma aproximação de um veículo num local onde ocorreu um acidente, é enviada uma mensagem pela rede que é captada pelo veículo principal, despoletando a travagem. De destacar que este envio será feito através do módulo com capacidade 5G, sendo desta forma uma aplicação inovadora. Complementado a este cenário está a realização do seguimento de um veículo por parte de um outro veículo, tornando assim uma aplicação mais complexa de travagem de emergência com um pelotão cooperativo. Este pelotão será mantido através de sensores presentes no veículo seguidor como o LiDAR e a ZED camera. Com isto, foi utilizado processamento de imagem e foi feita a fusão de sensores de forma a manter o seguidor a uma distância de segurança mas com capacidade de seguir o líder. Com o objetivo de validar e testar toda esta solução, foram utilizadas plataformas robóticas como solução de baixo custo, permitindo assim ter uma avaliação concreta, com resultados físicos esclarecedores de toda a aplicação realizada

A simulation approach for increased safety in advanced C-ITS scenarios

Com os recentes desenvolvimentos em diferentes áreas de conhecimento, como redes de comunicação sem fio e sensores, bem como a evolução recente em vários tópicos na área da Computação, os Sistemas Inteligentes e Cooperativos de Transporte (CITSs) tornaram-se um tema muito importante, e espera-se que comecem a ser cada vez mais implementados num futuro próximo. Nesta tese, é feita uma análise sobre estes sistemas e diferentes possiveis cenários focando no cenário de Platooning, assim como sobre comunicações Veículo-a-Tudo (V2X) com foco no ETSI ITS-G5, o standard europeu mais amplamente aceite na indústria automóvel para este tipo de comunicações. O desenvolvimento de duas ferramentas de co-simulação para análise de cenários C-ITS usando comunicações veículo para veículo (V2V), foi feito no contexto desta tese. COPADRIVe é uma ferramenta de co-simulação que junta um simulador de rede e um simulador robótico. A outra ferramenta de co-simulação, é uma ferramenta hardware-in-the-loop que úne um simulador robótico com comunicações feitas através de hardware real, On-Board units (OBUs). Ambas as ferramentas foram desenvolvidas e usadas como forma de análise e teste de situações de Platooning e componentes de software para implementação neste tipo de cenários. Este desenvolvimento teve origem na necessidade de existência deste tipo de ferramentas para suporte dos desenvolvimentos feitos no contexto dos Projetos europeus de I&D SafeCOP e ENABLE-S3, onde o CISTER participava ativamente.With the developments in different areas like Wireless Communication Networks and sensors, as well as, the recent evolution on various topics on Computing, Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems(C-ITSs) became a hot topic for research, and are expected to be increasingly deployed in the future. From the different possible scenarios, in this thesis, we focus in analyzing Cooperative Platooning and particularly, in enabling a set of simulation tools capable of encompassing the supporting Vehicle-to-Everything(V2X) communications guaranteed by the ETSI ITS-G5, the most widely accepted European standard on the automotive industry for these kind of communications. Therefore this thesis presents the development of two co-simulation tools for analysis of C-ITS scenarios using Vehicle-to-Vehicle(V2V) communications. First, COPADRIVe is a co-simulation tool joining together a network simulator and a robotic simulator. The other co-simulation tool, uses a a hardware-in-theloop approach one bridging a robotic simulator with real communications via OnBoard-Units (OBUs). Both tools were developed and used as the means to test and analyze Platooning scenarios and software components relevant in such applications, importantly. These tools’ were developed in line with the R&D European Projects SafeCOP and ENABLE-S3, where CISTER was and active participant

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

Testing facilities for end-to-end test of vertical applications enabled by 5G networks:Eindhoven 5G Brainport Testbed

The key-performance indicators (KPIs) that will be delivered by 5G networks such as extremely low-latency, high capacity, robustness and highly flexible network are key enablers for applications such as autonomous driving, cooperative robotics, transport and processing of large volumes of video and images, to name but a few. This paper presents the ongoing build up and deployment of the Eindhoven based 5G-Brainport testbed towards an open environment for validation and test of end-to-end applications benefitting from the 5G KPIs

Improving the Performance of Cooperative Platooning with Restricted Message Trigger Thresholds

Cooperative Vehicular Platooning (Co-VP) is one of the most prominent and challenging applications of Intelligent Traffic Systems. To support such vehicular communications, the ETSI ITS G5 standard specifies event-based communication profiles, triggered by kinematic parameters such as speed. The standard defines a set of threshold values for such triggers but no careful assessment in realistic platooning scenarios has been done to confirm the suitability of such values. In this work, we investigate the safety and performance limitations of such parameters in a realistic platooning co-simulation environment. We then propose more conservative threshold values, that we formalize as a new profile, and evaluate their impact in the longitudinal and lateral behaviour of a vehicular platoon as it carries out complex driving scenarios. Furthermore, we analyze the overhead introduced in the network by applying the new threshold values. We conclude that a pro-active message transmission scheme leads to improved platoon performance for highway scenarios, notably an increase greater than 40% in the longitudinal performance of the platoon, while not incurring in a significant network overhead. The obtained results also demonstrated an improved platoon performance for semi-urban scenarios, including obstacles and curves, where the heading error decreases in 26%, with slight network overhead.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Safety-critical platooning function based on wireless communication using cooperative robots

Platooning define la conducción de un grupo de vehículos con un destino o dirección común, en la que el primer vehículo decide sobre la conducción (p. ej. aceleración, cambio de carril, desvío, etc.) y los demás se restringen a seguirlo. Estos vehículos pueden ser conducidos por un ser humano o de forma automática. Además, los vehículos comparten información entre sí permitiendo mantener una distancia de seguridad mínima entre ellos, lo que reduce el consumo de combustible y compacta el tráfico en las carreteras sin incrementar el riesgo de colisiones. Esta tesis propone una serie de escenarios basados en platooning y define un plano de control distribuido entre los vehículos que integra un protocolo de comunicación y un protocolo de control necesarios para conseguir realizar los escenarios de platooning, propuestos. Tanto los escenarios como la pila de protocolos para la comunicación que se han propuesto están basados en trabajo previo descrito en artículos de investigación. Estos artículos explican y prueban estándares y tecnologías adecuadas para desarrollar las funcionalidades de platooning definidas en la tesis. La principal tarea en esta tesis es el diseño de un protocolo de comunicación en alto nivel, capa de aplicación del modelo OSI, el cual define un conjunto de mensajes que al combinarlos permiten implementar una serie de funciones de platooning, en concreto permiten la implementación de los escenarios descritos en la tesis. Además de diseñar este protocolo de comunicación, se han implementado y probado en una plataforma real sencillas funciones de platooning. En la tesis también se analiza el protocolo, se buscan soluciones para soportar fallos de comunicación en la implementación y se evalúa la actuación de la implementación en base a unas métricas previamente definidas. Los test realizados sobre la implementación y los resultados obtenidos en la evaluación muestran que el protocolo diseñado permite ejecutar correctamente los escenarios de platooning deseados