Waterborne platooning: A viability study of the vessel train concept

The research in this thesis is a viability study of a waterborne platooning concept called the Vessel Train (VT). This manuscript describes the VT characteristics. It explains how the VT’s advantages are reaped, as well as the VT’s challenges that need to be considered and dealt with. To assess the potential of the platooning concept an inland...

Reinforcement Learning for Switching of Semiautomated Vehicles Under Uncomfortable Driving Situations

Over the last two decades, autonomous driving has progressed from science fiction to a real possibility and rapidly developing. However, autonomous driving technology has significant weaknesses and is not safe in unexpected conditions. As a result, automobile manufacturers insist that the driver remains in the driver's seat even while the...

Reinforcement Learning for Switching Control of Semi-automated Vehicles with Driver Fatigue

Automated driving is a rapidly growing technology nowadays. Semi-automated driving is a subpart of automated driving which has multiple driving modes where both driver and automated module can take control. But full safety and comfort guarantees cannot still be given to the drivers. In this project, research has been done to ensure driver safety...

Reinforcement Learning approach for decision-making in driver control shifting for semi-autonomous driving

Semi-autonomous driving innovations aim to bridge the gap to fully autonomous driving by co-operating with human drivers to lead to optimal choices on who should drive in different scenarios by offering different automation levels. However, in the present day, known semi-autonomous driving solutions do not generalise to every complex case of...

Optimizing driving entity switching of semi-automated vehicles under automation degradation

Transitioning to use automated vehicles is a gradual process. Until full automation capabilities are developed there is a need to mediate which driving entity - human or autonomous driving system (ADS) - should be in control depending on the circumstances. This research aims at investigating the switching between manual and automated driving in...

A Vision-based Semi-autonomous Impedance Control Method in Teleoperation

Teleoperation of a robot is often necessary when the remote site is not safe for humans. Moreover, to interact with dynamic environments safely, a teleoperation method called teleimpedance, which allows the human operator to control the impedance of the robot, is used. The main drawback of this method is that the human workload may increase....

Which position do I pick, if I don't know how to do the task?: A model to predict advantageous base poses for semi-autonomous robots.

In our aging society, the demand for care is increasing. Therefore, it is foreseen that robots will assist elderly. However, human assistance will often be required by the robot, which thus should be at a position advantageous for telemanipulation. For autonomous manipulation, methods have been developed that position a robot. But for...