document

Learning-Based Multi-UAV Flocking Control With Limited Visual Field and Instinctive Repulsion

Bai, Chengchao (author), Yan, Peng (author), Piao, Haiyin (author), Pan, W. (author), Guo, Jifeng (author)

This article explores deep reinforcement learning (DRL) for the flocking control of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms. The flocking control policy is trained using a centralized-learning-decentralized-execution (CTDE) paradigm, where a centralized critic network augmented with additional information about the entire UAV swarm is utilized...

journal article 2024

document

Distributed multi-target tracking and active perception with mobile camera networks

Casao, S. (author), Serra Gomez, A. (author), Murillo, Ana C. (author), Böhmer, J.W. (author), Alonso-Mora, J. (author), Montijano, Eduardo (author)

Smart cameras are an essential component in surveillance and monitoring applications, and they have been typically deployed in networks of fixed camera locations. The addition of mobile cameras, mounted on robots, can overcome some of the limitations of static networks such as blind spots or back-lightning, allowing the system to gather the...

journal article 2024

document

A column-generation matheuristic approach for optimizing first-mile ridesharing services with publicly- and privately-owned autonomous vehicles

He, P. (author), Jin, Jian Gang (author), Trépanier, Martin (author), Schulte, F. (author)

The burden of first-mile connection to public transit stations is a key barrier that discourages riders from taking public transportation. Public transit agencies typically operate a modest fleet of vehicles to provide first-mile services due to the high operating costs, thus failing to adequately meet the first-mile travel demands,...

journal article 2024

document

Single and Multi-objective Test Cases Prioritization for Self-driving Cars in Virtual Environments

Birchler, Christian (author), Khatiri, Sajad (author), Derakhshanfar, P. (author), Panichella, Sebastiano (author), Panichella, A. (author)

Testing with simulation environments helps to identify critical failing scenarios for self-driving cars (SDCs). Simulation-based tests are safer than in-field operational tests and allow detecting software defects before deployment. However, these tests are very expensive and are too many to be run frequently within limited time constraints...

journal article 2023

document

Standards for passenger comfort in automated vehicles: Acceleration and jerk

de Winkel, K.N. (author), Irmak, T. (author), Happee, R. (author), Shyrokau, B. (author)

A prime concern for automated vehicles is motion comfort, as an uncomfortable ride may reduce acceptance of the technology amongst the general population. However, it is not clear how transient motions typical for travelling by car affect the experience of comfort. Here, we determine the relation between properties of vehicle motions (i.e.,...

journal article 2023

document

Hierarchical Motion Planning and Tracking for Autonomous Vehicles Using Global Heuristic Based Potential Field and Reinforcement Learning Based Predictive Control

Du, Guodong (author), Zou, Yuan (author), Zhang, Xudong (author), Li, Z. (author), Liu, Qi (author)

The autonomous vehicle is widely applied in various ground operations, in which motion planning and tracking control are becoming the key technologies to achieve autonomous driving. In order to further improve the performance of motion planning and tracking control, an efficient hierarchical framework containing motion planning and tracking...

journal article 2023

document

Cooperative Passivity-Based Control of Nonlinear Mechanical Systems

de Groot, O.M. (author), Valk, Laurens (author), Keviczky, T. (author)

In this work, we propose two cooperative passivity-based control methods for networks of mechanical systems. By cooperatively synchronizing the end-effector coordinates of the individual agents, we achieve cooperation between systems of different types. The underlying passivity property of our control approaches ensures that cooperation is...

journal article 2023

document

Formal Abstraction of General Stochastic Systems via Noise Partitioning

Skovbekk, John (author), Laurenti, L. (author), Frew, Eric (author), Lahijanian, Morteza (author)

Verifying the performance of safety-critical, stochastic systems with complex noise distributions is difficult. We introduce a general procedure for the finite abstraction of nonlinear stochastic systems with nonstandard (e.g., non-affine, non-symmetric, non-unimodal) noise distributions for verification purposes. The method uses a finite...

journal article 2023

document

Characterizing Behavioral Differences of Autonomous Vehicles and Human-Driven Vehicles at Signalized Intersections Based on Waymo Open Dataset

Wang, Y. (author), Farah, H. (author), Yu, Rongjie (author), Qiu, Shuhan (author), van Arem, B. (author)

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are being introduced to the traffic system with the promise of improving current traffic status. However, the empirical data also indicate contrary effects with estimated higher crash rate and change of crash patterns. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the driving behavior of AVs and human-driven vehicles ...

journal article 2023

document

Value elicitation on a scenario of autonomous weapon system deployment: a qualitative study based on the value deliberation process

Verdiesen, E.P. (author), Dignum, M.V. (author)

Ethical concerns on autonomous weapon systems (AWS) call for a process of human oversight to ensure accountability over targeting decisions and the use of force. To align the behavior of autonomous systems with human values and norms, the Design for Values approach can be used to consciously embody values in the deployment of AWS. One instrument...

journal article 2023

document

Roadmap on measurement technologies for next generation structural health monitoring systems

Laflamme, Simon (author), Ubertini, Filippo (author), Di Matteo, Alberto (author), Pirrotta, Antonina (author), Perry, Marcus (author), Fu, Yuguang (author), Glisic, Branko (author), Shu, Yening (author), Giardina, Giorgia (author)

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is the automation of the condition assessment process of an engineered system. When applied to geometrically large components or structures, such as those found in civil and aerospace infrastructure and systems, a critical challenge is in designing the sensing solution that could yield actionable information...

journal article 2023

document

Robust design of CAV-Dedicated lanes considering CAV demand uncertainty and lane reallocation policy

Seilabi, Sania E. (author), Pourgholamali, Mohammadhosein (author), Correia, Gonçalo (author), Labi, Samuel (author)

Reduced headways of connected and automated vehicles (CAV) provide opportunities to address traffic congestion and environmental adversities. This benefit can be utilized by deploying CAV-dedicated lanes (CAVDL). This paper presents a bi-level optimization model that captures CAV market size uncertainty. The upper level determines the links ...

journal article 2023

document

Sensing and Machine Learning for Automotive Perception: A Review

Pandharipande, Ashish (author), Cheng, Chih Hong (author), Dauwels, J.H.G. (author), Gurbuz, Sevgi Z. (author), Ibanez-Guzman, Javier (author), Li, Guofa (author), Piazzoni, Andrea (author), Wang, Pu (author), Santra, Avik (author)

Automotive perception involves understanding the external driving environment and the internal state of the vehicle cabin and occupants using sensor data. It is critical to achieving high levels of safety and autonomy in driving. This article provides an overview of different sensor modalities, such as cameras, radars, and light detection and...

journal article 2023

document

Planning policies for the driverless city using backcasting and the participatory Q-Methodology

Nogués, Soledad (author), González-González, Esther (author), Stead, D. (author), Cordera, Rubén (author)

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) can potentially bring about major changes in cities. Anticipatory planning approaches may provide valuable opportunities for fostering desirable transitions and pre-empting undesirable impacts. This research employs a combination of two methods to define the key policies to support a transition to the desirable...

journal article 2023

document

A Survey on Approximate Edge AI for Energy Efficient Autonomous Driving Services

Katare, D. (author), Perino, Diego (author), Nurmi, Jari (author), Warnier, Martijn (author), Janssen, M.F.W.H.A. (author), Ding, Aaron Yi (author)

Autonomous driving services depends on active sensing from modules such as camera, LiDAR, radar, and communication units. Traditionally, these modules process the sensed data on high-performance computing units inside the vehicle, which can deploy intelligent algorithms and AI models. The sensors mentioned above can produce large volumes of data...

journal article 2023

document

Integrated optimization of timetable, bus formation, and vehicle scheduling in autonomous modular public transport systems

Liu, Zhengke (author), Correia, Gonçalo (author), Ma, Zhenliang (author), Li, Shen (author), Ma, Xiaolei (author)

This paper presents a joint optimization of the timetable, bus formation, and vehicle scheduling in a flexible public transport (PT) system that utilizes autonomous modular vehicles (AMVs). In this system, AMVs have the capability to detach or join with each other at intermediate stops along the route to dynamically adjust the bus formation ...

journal article 2023

document

On line-of-sight navigation for deep-space applications: A performance analysis

Casini, S. (author), Cervone, A. (author), Monna, G.L.E. (author), Gill, E.K.A. (author)

Line-of-Sight (LoS) navigation is an optical navigation technique that exploits the direction to visible celestial bodies, obtained from an onboard imaging system, to estimate the position and velocity of a spacecraft. The directions are fed to an estimation filter, where they are matched with the actual position of the observed bodies,...

journal article 2023

document

Open Gimbal: A 3 Degrees of Freedom Open Source Sensing and Testing Platform for Nano and Micro UAVs

Sharma, Suryansh (author), Dijkstra, Tristan (author), Venkatesha Prasad, Ranga Rao (author)

Testing the aerodynamics of micro-UAVs (mUAVs) and nano-UAVs (nUAVs) without actually flying is highly challenging. To address this issue, we introduce Open Gimbal, a specially designed 3 degrees of freedom (DoF) platform that caters to the unique requirements of mUAVs and nUAVs. This platform allows for unrestricted and free rotational...

journal article 2023

document

PEM: Perception Error Model for Virtual Testing of Autonomous Vehicles

Piazzoni, Andrea (author), Cherian, Jim (author), Dauwels, J.H.G. (author), Chau, Lap Pui (author)

Even though virtual testing of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) has been well recognized as essential for safety assessment, AV simulators are still undergoing active development. One particular challenge is the problem of including the Sensing and Perception (S&P) subsystem into the virtual simulation loop in an efficient and effective manner....

journal article 2023

document

A multiclass simulation-based dynamic traffic assignment model for mixed traffic flow of connected and autonomous vehicles and human-driven vehicles

Bamdad Mehrabani, B.B.M. (author), Erdmann, Jakob (author), Sgambi, Luca (author), Seyedabrishami, Seyedehsan (author), Snelder, M. (author)

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) may exhibit different driving and route choice behaviours compared to Human-Driven Vehicles (HDVs), which can result in a mixed traffic flow with multiple classes of route choice behaviour. Therefore, it is necessary to solve the Multiclass Traffic Assignment Problem (TAP) for mixed traffic flow....

journal article 2023