Communication and interaction with semiautonomous ground vehicles by force control steering

While full automation of road vehicles remains a future goal, shared-control and semi-autonomous driving – involving transitions of control between the human and the machine – are more feasible objectives in the near term. These alternative driving modes will benefit from new research towards novel steering control devices, more suitable where the machine intelligence controls only partially the vehicle. In this paper it is proposed that when the human shares the control of a vehicle with an autonomous or semi-autonomous system, a force control or non-displacement steering wheel (i.e., a steering wheel which does not rotate but detects the applied torque by the human driver) can be advantageous under certain schemes: tight rein or loose rein modes according to the Hmetaphor. We support this proposition with the first experiments, to the best of our knowledge, in which human participants drove in a simulated road scene with a force control steering wheel. The experiments exhibited that humans can adapt promptly to force control steering and are able to control the vehicle smoothly. Different transfer functions are tested, which translate the applied torque at the force control steering wheel to the steering angle at the wheels of the vehicle; it is shown that fractional order transfer functions increment steering stability and control accuracy when using a force control device. Transition of control experiments are also performed with both, a conventional and a force control steering wheel. This prototypical steering system can be realized via steer-by-wire controls, which are already incorporated in commercially available vehicles

Using Architecture Patterns to Architect and Analyze Systems of Systems

The inherent nature of a Systems of Systems (SoS) makes it very difficult to model and analyze it through conventional means. One of the first challenges faced is how to represent the SoS in a form that lends itself to detailed analysis, especially when full details of the component systems may not be readily available. Therefore, an important consideration is whether use of model abstractions can be sufficient to deal with many of the analysis needs of the SoS. It is clear there is a need for a new paradigm, encompassing methodology, models, tools and flows that enable the future engineering of SoS in order that they can be operated effectively. This paper describes how we are using architecture patterns to architect and analyze SoS in order that we can compare different architecture solutions and provide guidelines for the development of a future architectures based on the analysis of existing architectures. Insights are given to show the benefits for SoS architecture analysis with exemplars taken from a test case dealing with emergency response for a major incident in the UK. Our findings show the significant increase in SoS characterization that patterns can afford the systems architect in all phases of SoS evolution in order to deliver improved SoS capability