iTETRIS Platform Architecture for the Integration of Cooperative Traffic and Wireless Simulations

The use of cooperative wireless communications can support driving through dynamic exchange of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) messages. Traffic applications based on such systems will be able to generate a safer, faster, cheaper and cleaner way for people and goods to move. In this context, the iTERIS project aims at providing the framework to combine traffic mobility and wireless communication simulations for large scale testing of traffic management solutions based on cooperative systems. This paper addresses the description and explanation of the implementation choices taken to build a modular and interoperable architecture integrating heterogeneous traffic and wireless simulators, and application algorithms supporting traffic management strategies. The functions of an “in-between” control system for managing correct simulation executions over the platform are presented. The inter-block interaction procedures identified to ensure optimum data transfer for simulation efficiency are also introduced

Investigating the Efficiency of ITS Cooperative Systems for a Better Use of Urban Transport Infrastructures: The iTETRIS Simulation Platform

The use of cooperative ITS communication systems, supporting driving through the dynamic exchange of Vehicle-to- Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) messages, is a potential candidate to improve the economical and societal welfare. The application of such systems for novel cooperative traffic management strategies can introduce a lot of beneficial effects not only for road safety, but also for the economy related to transportation systems and the environmental impact. Despite this apparent set of promising features, City Road Authorities, which hold a key-role in determining the final adoption of such systems, still look at cooperative systems without sharing a clear opinion. This is mainly due to the current lack of definitive and solid evidences of the effectiveness of such systems when applied in the real world. In order to fill this gap and let Road Authorities estimate the usefulness of such technologies in achieving the objectives dictated by cities’ traffic management policies, the EU consortium iTETRIS is developing a simulation platform for large scale testing of traffic management solutions making use of cooperative ITS systems. Thanks to its own distinguishing features, iTETRIS aims at becoming a good supporting tool for Road Authorities to implement preliminary tests on the effectiveness of ITS solutions prior to investing money for the physical deployment of the communication infrastructures allowing their functioning

Prototyping and Evaluation of Infrastructure-assisted Transition of Control for Cooperative Automated Vehicles

Automated driving is now possible in diverse road and traffic conditions. However, there are still situations that automated vehicles cannot handle safely and efficiently. In this case, a Transition of Control (ToC) is necessary so that the driver takes control of the driving. Executing a ToC requires the driver to get full situation awareness of the driving environment. If the driver fails to get back the control in a limited time, a Minimum Risk Maneuver (MRM) is executed to bring the vehicle into a safe state (e.g., decelerating to full stop). The execution of ToCs requires some time and can cause traffic disruption and safety risks that increase if several vehicles execute ToCs/MRMs at similar times and in the same area. This study proposes to use novel C-ITS traffic management measures where the infrastructure exploits V2X communications to assist Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) in the execution of ToCs. The infrastructure can suggest a spatial distribution of ToCs, and inform vehicles of the locations where they could execute a safe stop in case of MRM. This paper reports the first field operational tests that validate the feasibility and quantify the benefits of the proposed infrastructure-assisted ToC and MRM management. The paper also presents the CAV and roadside infrastructure prototypes implemented and used in the trials. The conducted field trials demonstrate that infrastructure-assisted traffic management solutions can reduce safety risks and traffic disruption

MAVEN Deliverable 6.4: Integration Final Report

This document presents the work that has been performed in WP6 after D6.3, and therefore focussing on the integration sprints 3-6. It describes which parts of the system are implemented and how they are put together. To do so, it builds upon the deliverables created so far, esp. D6.3 and all other deliverables of the underlying work packages 3, 4 and 5. Another important aspect for understanding the content of this deliverable is D2.1 [4] for the scenario definition of the whole MAVEN project, and the deliverables D6.1 [5] and D6.2 [6], which give an overview on the existing infrastructure and vehicles used in MAVEN

MAVEN Deliverable 7.2: Impact Assessment - Technical Report

This deliverable focuses on an important topic within the MAVEN project - evaluation of the project impact. This is an important step that will allow us to say what the results and impact of the different technologies, functionalities as well as assumptions are. It covers different dimensions of the impact assessment as stated in the Deliverable D7.1 - Impact assessment plan [10]. The field tests proved that the technology in the vehicle works together with the infrastructure and the solution is technically feasible. This was demonstrated also during particular events and is reported in the attached test protocols. At the same time, the emulation and simulation in Dominion software proved the functionality, for example with respect to the cooperative perception or safety indicators. The tests also proved that the key performance indicator "minimum time to the collision" decreases when applying the cooperative sensing. Also, the number of human interventions needed was zero in all the tests. This deliverable also discussed selected results of a detailed user survey aiming at understanding the expected impacts and transition of automated vehicles. The overall number of respondents reached 209. The responses have revealed some interesting facts. For example, over 80% of the respondents believe that CAVs will decrease the number of traffic accidents. Similarly, about 70% of the respondents expect improvements in traffic congestions. Over 82% of respondents declared that they would accept some detour when driving if it helps the overall traffic situation. The literature review, however, indicated that autonomous vehicles will have either a positive or a negative effect on the environment, depending on the policies. For example, opening cars as a mode of transport to new user groups (seniors, children etc.) together with improvements of the traffic, flow parameters can increase the traffic volume on roads. Policy makers shall focus on the integration of the CAVs into a broader policy concept including car or ride-sharing, electromobility and others. In order to evaluate the transition, for example, the influence of different penetration rates of CAVs on the performance, a microscopic traffic simulation was performed. Here the particular MAVEN use cases, as well as their combination, was addressed. The results of the simulation are rather promising. The potential for improvements in traffic performance is clearly there. It was demonstrated that a proper integration of CAVs into city traffic management can, for example, help with respect to the environmental goals (Climate Action of the European Commission) and reduce CO2 emissions by up to 12 % (a combination of GLOSA and signal optimization). On corridors with a green wave, a capacity increase of up to 34% was achieved. The conclusions from this project can be used not only by other researchers but mainly by traffic managers and decision-makers in cities. The findings can get a better idea about the real impacts of particular use cases (such as green wave, GLOSA and others) in the cities. An important added value is also the focus on the transition phase. It was demonstrated that already for lower penetration rates (even 20% penetration of automated vehicles), there are significant improvements in traffic performance. For example, the platooning leads to a decrease of CO2 emissions of 2,6% or the impact indicator by 17,7%

Investigating the Efficiency of ITS Cooperative Systems for a Better Use of Urban Transport Infrastructures: The iTETRIS Simulation Platform

The use of cooperative ITS communication systems, supporting driving through the dynamic exchange of Vehicle-to- Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) messages, is a potential candidate to improve the economical and societal welfare. The application of such systems for novel cooperative traffic management strategies can introduce a lot of beneficial effects not only for road safety, but also for the economy related to transportation systems and the environmental impact. Despite this apparent set of promising features, City Road Authorities, which hold a key-role in determining the final adoption of such systems, still look at cooperative systems without sharing a clear opinion. This is mainly due to the current lack of definitive and solid evidences of the effectiveness of such systems when applied in the real world. In order to fill this gap and let Road Authorities estimate the usefulness of such technologies in achieving the objectives dictated by cities’ traffic management policies, the EU consortium iTETRIS is developing a simulation platform for large scale testing of traffic management solutions making use of cooperative ITS systems. Thanks to its own distinguishing features, iTETRIS aims at becoming a good supporting tool for Road Authorities to implement preliminary tests on the effectiveness of ITS solutions prior to investing money for the physical deployment of the communication infrastructures allowing their functioning

Connectivity-based Routing and Dissemination Protocols for Vehicular Networks

Los sistemas inteligentes de transporte cooperativos (Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems) han sido identificados como un medio prometedor para mejorar la seguridad vial y la eficiencia del tráfico. Estos sistemas se basan en el intercambio dinámico de mensajes entre vehículos (Vehicle-to-Vehicle, V2V), y entre vehículos y nodos de infraestructura (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure, V2I). Gracias a este intercambio de información, las aplicaciones cooperativas permitirán que un conductor pueda detectar situaciones de tráfico adversas o peligrosas con suficiente antelación, tanto en el tiempo como en el espacio. Para hacer frente a los estrictos requisitos de las aplicaciones cooperativas y a las condiciones adversas en las que se realizan las comunicaciones vehiculares, están siendo especificados los estándares de comunicación internacionales IEEE 802.11p y ETSI ITS G5. Estos estándares permiten realizar comunicaciones V2V y V2I directas o del tipo multi-hop. Las comunicaciones multi-hop en redes de comunicaciones vehiculares posibilitan la transmisión de mensajes hacia nodos lejanos y la distribución de información a vehículos situados en áreas de relevancia, empleando nodos intermedios como retransmisores. Sin embargo, el rendimiento de sistemas que emplean comunicaciones multi-hop depende ampliamente del diseño e implementación de protocolos de enrutamiento y diseminación eficaces y efectivos. Estos protocolos deben enfrentarse a los retos impuestos por el entorno de comunicación vehicular (la elevada movilidad de los vehículos, las condiciones variables de propagación radio y de densidad vehicular, y las escasez de recursos radio). En este contexto, esta tesis doctoral presenta y evalúa novedosos protocolos de enrutamiento y diseminación basados en el concepto de conectividad multi-hop de las calles o “multi-hop road connectivity”. La conectividad multi-hop se define como la capacidad que presenta una calle para posibilitar comunicaciones multi-hop. En la tesis, se propone un mecanismo de comunicación para estimar esta conectividad multi-hop en tiempo real y de forma distribuida. Comparado con otros mecanismos que intentan extrapolar la capacidad de retransmisión multi-hop de una calle basándose en evaluaciones de su densidad de vehículos, el mecanismo propuesto genera menores niveles de sobrecarga en el canal radio. Utilizando el mecanismo de estimación de la conectividad multi-hop propuesto, se presenta un protocolo de enrutamiento que emplea retransmisiones broadcast basadas en contención. Este enfoque basado en contención proporciona robustez al proceso de retransmisión de mensajes. Las estimaciones de la conectividad multi-hop permiten que las decisiones de enrutamiento se adapten dinámicamente a las variaciones de conectividad de la red vehicular. Además, el uso de estas estimaciones hace que la carga de comunicaciones se distribuya más uniformemente en el escenario, permitiendo de esta manera que se reduzca la probabilidad espacial de congestión del canal radio. Finalmente, la tesis propone un protocolo de diseminación híbrido que utiliza las ventajas de las comunicaciones radio heterogéneas. En particular, el protocolo propuesto combina comunicaciones celulares y comunicaciones V2V para diseminar información desde un proveedor centralizado hacia los vehículos situados en un área de relevancia. En particular, las estimaciones de la conectividad multi-hop se envían al proveedor centralizado utilizando la red celular, y los datos se procesan y fusionan para obtener una imagen global de la conectividad de la red vehicular. Este conocimiento contextual de la conectividad se emplea por el proceso de diseminación propuesto que combina inyecciones de la información mediante transmisiones celulares con una diseminación cooperativa en la red de vehículos a través de comunicaciones V2V. La información contextual permite realizar estrategias de inyección inteligentes que aumentan la fiabilidad del proceso de diseminación sin exigir una alta cantidad de recursos celulares. El conocimiento contextual de la conectividad basado en la información de conectividad multi-hop se obtiene con bajos niveles de sobrecarga de comunicaciones tanto en la red celular como en la vehicular. La eficacia y la eficiencia de todos los protocolos propuestos han sido validadas mediante simulaciones a gran escala con precisión, y conformes con los estándares de comunicación vehiculares. En este contexto, la tesis presenta una novedosa plataforma modular para la simulación de aplicaciones ITS cooperativas que ofrece estas capacidades en una única solución

Implementation and Testing of Dynamic and Flexible Platoons in Urban Areas

A new way of platooning in urban areas has been presented on the AAET conference last year. The theoretical approach of linking Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (C-ACC) to state-machine based platoon coordination has been discussed, which has been developed within the European H2020 project MAVEN (Managing Automated Vehicles Enhances Network). This approach leads to a maximum of flexibility and a dynamic platoon behavior allowing to cope with the complex situations occurring under urban conditions. Special attention of this development laid on the inclusion of communication - inside the platoon and to possible new members (V2V) and between infrastructure and the platoon (V2I and I2V) to allow coordinated movements through signalized intersections. During the last year, the theoretical approach has been put into praxis. Several steps had to be taken to reach the goal of driving on public roads in the end. First, simulations had to be performed. Then, an approach based on augmented reality has been chosen to test different scenarios on test tracks without the need of equipping several vehicles with the required hardware for C-ACC-platooning. Afterwards, more real components (traffic lights, other platooning vehicles) were added, until finally test runs could be performed on the public roads of the Tostmannplatz in Braunschweig, which is part of the Application platform for Intelligent Mobility (AIM). This paper shows the different test setups and approaches and describes early results of the tests

EU_MAVEN D3.1 :Detailed Concepts For Cooperative Manoeuvre And Trajectory Planning And For In Vehicle Cooperative Environment Perception

This deliverable is the textual description of the cooperative manoeuvre and trajectory planning and in-vehicle cooperative environment perception concepts, which have been designed by DLR and HMETC for MAVEN