Experimental validation of connected automated vehicle design among human-driven vehicles

In this paper, we present results regarding the experimental validation of connected automated vehicle design. In order for a connected automated vehicle to integrate well with human-dominated traffic, we propose a class of connected cruise control algorithms with feedback structure originated from human driving behavior. We test the connected cruise controllers using real vehicles under several driving scenarios while utilizing beyond-line-of-sight motion information obtained from neighboring human-driven vehicles via vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication. We experimentally show that the design is robust against variations in human behavior as well as changes in the topology of the communication network. We demonstrate that both safety and energy efficiency can be significantly improved for the connected automated vehicle as well as for the neighboring human-driven vehicles and that the connected automated vehicle may bring additional societal benefits by mitigating traffic waves.     

Distributed MPC for cooperative highway driving and energy-economy validation via microscopic simulations

Traffic congestion and energy issues have set a high bar for current ground transportation systems. With advances in vehicular communication technologies, collaborations of connected vehicles have becoming a fundamental block to build automated highway transportation systems of high efficiency. This paper presents a distributed optimal control scheme that takes into account macroscopic traffic management and microscopic vehicle dynamics to achieve efficiently cooperative highway driving. Critical traffic information beyond the scope of human perception is obtained from connected vehicles downstream to establish necessary traffic management mitigating congestion. With backpropagating traffic management advice, a connected vehicle having an adjustment intention exchanges control-oriented information with immediately connected neighbors to establish potential cooperation consensus, and to generate cooperative control actions. To achieve this goal, a distributed model predictive control (DMPC) scheme is developed accounting for driving safety and efficiency. By coupling the states of collaborators in the optimization index, connected vehicles achieve fundamental highway maneuvers cooperatively and optimally. The performance of the distributed control scheme and the energy-saving potential of conducting such cooperation are tested in a mixed highway traffic environment by the means of microscopic simulations.     

A framework for user- and system-oriented optimisation of fuel efficiency and traffic flow in Adaptive Cruise Control

Fully automated vehicles could have a significant share of the road network traffic in the near future. Several commercial vehicles with full-range Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) systems or semi-autonomous functionalities are already available on the market. Many research studies aim at leveraging the potential of automated driving in order to improve the fuel efficiency of vehicles. However, in the vast majority of those, fuel efficiency is isolated to the driving dynamics between a single follower-leader pair, hence overlooking the complex nature of traffic. Consequently fuel efficiency and the efficient use of the roadway capacity are framed as conflicting objectives, leading to fuel-economy control models that adopt highly conservative driving styles.This formulation of the problem could be seen as a user-optimal approach, where in spite of delivering savings for individual vehicles, there is the side-effect of the deterioration of traffic flow. An important point that is overlooked is that the inefficient use of roadway capacity gives rise to congested traffic and traffic breakdowns, which in return increases energy costs within the system. The optimisation methods used in these studies entail high computational costs and, therefore, impose a strict constraint on the scope of problem.In this study, the use of car-following models and the limitation of the search space of optimal strategies to the parameter space of these is proposed. The proposed framework enables performing much more comprehensive optimisations and conducting more extensive tests on the collective impacts of fuel-economy driving strategies. The results show that, as conjectured, a “short-sighted” user-optimal approach is unable to deliver overall fuel efficiency. Conversely, a system-optimal formulation for fuel efficient driving is presented, and it is shown that the objectives of fuel efficiency and traffic flow are in fact not only non-conflicting, but also that they could be viewed as one when the global benefits to the network are considered.     

Impacts of driving patterns on tank-to-wheel energy use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles

We evaluate the implications of a range of driving patterns on the tank-to-wheel energy use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The driving patterns, which reflect short distance, low speed, and congested city driving to long distance, high speed, and uncongested highway driving, are estimated using an approach that involves linked traffic assignment and vehicle motion models. We find substantial variation in tank-to-wheel energy use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles across driving patterns. Tank-to-wheel petroleum energy use on a per kilometer basis is lowest for the city and highest for the highway driving, with the opposite holding for a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle.     

Connected cruise control among human-driven vehicles: Experiment-based parameter estimation and optimal control design

In this paper, we consider connected cruise control design in mixed traffic flow where most vehicles are human-driven. We first propose a sweeping least square method to estimate in real time feedback gains and driver reaction time of human-driven vehicles around the connected automated vehicle. Then we propose an optimal connected cruise controller based on the mean dynamics of human driving behavior. We test the performance of both the estimation algorithm and the connected cruise control algorithm using experimental data. We demonstrate that by combining the proposed estimation algorithm and the optimal controller, the connected automated vehicle has significantly improved performance compared to a human-driven vehicle.     

Influence of connected and autonomous vehicles on traffic flow stability and throughput

The introduction of connected and autonomous vehicles will bring changes to the highway driving environment. Connected vehicle technology provides real-time information about the surrounding traffic condition and the traffic management center’s decisions. Such information is expected to improve drivers’ efficiency, response, and comfort while enhancing safety and mobility. Connected vehicle technology can also further increase efficiency and reliability of autonomous vehicles, though these vehicles could be operated solely with their on-board sensors, without communication. While several studies have examined the possible effects of connected and autonomous vehicles on the driving environment, most of the modeling approaches in the literature do not distinguish between connectivity and automation, leaving many questions unanswered regarding the implications of different contemplated deployment scenarios. There is need for a comprehensive acceleration framework that distinguishes between these two technologies while modeling the new connected environment. This study presents a framework that utilizes different models with technology-appropriate assumptions to simulate different vehicle types with distinct communication capabilities. The stability analysis of the resulting traffic stream behavior using this framework is presented for different market penetration rates of connected and autonomous vehicles. The analysis reveals that connected and autonomous vehicles can improve string stability. Moreover, automation is found to be more effective in preventing shockwave formation and propagation under the model’s assumptions. In addition to stability, the effects of these technologies on throughput are explored, suggesting substantial potential throughput increases under certain penetration scenarios.     

Isolated intersection control for various levels of vehicle technology: Conventional,connected, and automated vehicles

Connected vehicle technology can be beneficial for traffic operations at intersections. The information provided by cars equipped with this technology can be used to design a more efficient signal control strategy. Moreover, it can be possible to control the trajectory of automated vehicles with a centralized controller. This paper builds on a previous signal control algorithm developed for connected vehicles in a simple, single intersection. It improves the previous work by (1) integrating three different stages of technology development; (2) developing a heuristics to switch the signal controls depending on the stage of technology; (3) increasing the computational efficiency with a branch and bound solution method; (4) incorporating trajectory design for automated vehicles; (5) using a Kalman filter to reduce the impact of measurement errors on the final solution. Three categories of vehicles are considered in this paper to represent different stages of this technology: conventional vehicles, connected but non-automated vehicles (connected vehicles), and automated vehicles. The proposed algorithm finds the optimal departure sequence to minimize the total delay based on position information. Within each departure sequence, the algorithm finds the optimal trajectory of automated vehicles that reduces total delay. The optimal departure sequence and trajectories are obtained by a branch and bound method, which shows the potential of generalizing this algorithm to a complex intersection.Simulations are conducted for different total flows, demand ratios and penetration rates of each technology stage (i.e. proportion of each category of vehicles). This algorithm is compared to an actuated signal control algorithm to evaluate its performance. The simulation results show an evident decrease in the total number of stops and delay when using the connected vehicle algorithm for the tested scenarios with information level of as low as 50%. Robustness of this algorithm to different input parameters and measurement noises are also evaluated. Results show that the algorithm is more sensitive to the arrival pattern in high flow scenarios. Results also show that the algorithm works well with the measurement noises. Finally, the results are used to develop a heuristic to switch between the different control algorithms, according to the total demand and penetration rate of each technology.     

Platoon based cooperative driving model with consideration of realistic inter-vehicle communication

Recent developments of information and communication technologies (ICT) have enabled vehicles to timely communicate with each other through wireless technologies, which will form future (intelligent) traffic systems (ITS) consisting of so-called connected vehicles. Cooperative driving with the connected vehicles is regarded as a promising driving pattern to significantly improve transportation efficiency and traffic safety. Nevertheless, unreliable vehicular communications also introduce packet loss and transmission delay when vehicular kinetic information or control commands are disseminated among vehicles, which brings more challenges in the system modeling and optimization. Currently, no data has been yet available for the calibration and validation of a model for ITS, and most research has been only conducted for a theoretical point of view. Along this line, this paper focuses on the (theoretical) development of a more general (microscopic) traffic model which enables the cooperative driving behavior via a so-called inter-vehicle communication (IVC). To this end, we design a consensus-based controller for the cooperative driving system (CDS) considering (intelligent) traffic flow that consists of many platoons moving together. More specifically, the IEEE 802.11p, the de facto vehicular networking standard required to support ITS applications, is selected as the IVC protocols of the CDS, in order to investigate how the vehicular communications affect the features of intelligent traffic flow. This study essentially explores the relationship between IVC and cooperative driving, which can be exploited as the reference for the CDS optimization and design.     

An eco-driving system for electric vehicles with signal control under V2X environment

The benefit of eco-driving of electric vehicles (EVs) has been studied with the promising connected vehicle (i.e. V2X) technology in recent years. Whereas, it is still in doubt that how traffic signal control affects EV energy consumption. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the interactions between the traffic signal control and EV energy consumption. This research aims at studying the energy efficiency and traffic mobility of the EV system under V2X environment. An optimization model is proposed to meet both operation and energy efficiency for an EV transportation system with both connected EVs (CEVs) and non-CEVs. For CEVs, a stage-wise approximation model is implemented to provide an optimal speed control strategy. Non-CEVs obey a car-following rule suggested by the well-known Intelligent Driver Model (IDM) to achieve eco-driving. The eco-driving EV system is then integrated with signal control and a bi-objective and multi-stage optimization problem is formulated. For such a large-scale problem, a hybrid intelligent algorithm merging genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is implemented. At last, a validation case is performed on an arterial with four intersections with different traffic demands. Results show that cycle-based signal control could improve both traffic mobility and energy saving of the EV system with eco-driving compared to a fixed signal timing plan. The total consumed energy decreases as the CEV penetration rate augments in general.     

Eco approaching at an isolated signalized intersection under partially connected and automated vehicles environment

This research proposed an eco-driving system for an isolated signalized intersection under partially Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV) environment. This system prioritizes mobility before improving fuel efficiency and optimizes the entire traffic flow by optimizing speed profiles of the connected and automated vehicles. The optimal control problem was solved using Pontryagin’s Minimum Principle. Simulation-based before and after evaluation of the proposed design was conducted. Fuel consumption benefits range from 2.02% to 58.01%. The CO₂ emissions benefits range from 1.97% to 33.26%. Throughput benefits are up to 10.80%. The variations are caused by the market penetration rate of connected and automated vehicles and v/c ratio. No adverse effect is observed. Detailed investigation reveals that benefits are significant as long as there is CAV and they grow with CAV’s market penetration rate (MPR) until they level off at about 40% MPR. This indicates that the proposed eco-driving system can be implemented with a low market penetration rate of connected and automated vehicles and could be implemented in a near future. The investigation also reveals that the proposed eco-driving system is able to smooth out the shock wave caused by signal controls and is robust over the impedance from conventional vehicles and randomness of traffic. The proposed system is fast in computation and has great potential for real-time implementation.     

A platoon based cooperative eco-driving model for mixed automated and human-driven vehicles at a signalised intersection

The advancements in communication and sensing technologies can be exploited to assist the drivers in making better decisions. In this paper, we consider the design of a real-time cooperative eco-driving strategy for a group of vehicles with mixed automated vehicles (AVs) and human-driven vehicles (HVs). The lead vehicles in the platoon can receive the signal phase and timing information via vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication and the traffic states of both the preceding vehicle and current platoon via vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. We propose a receding horizon model predictive control (MPC) method to minimise the fuel consumption for platoons and drive the platoons to pass the intersection on a green phase. The method is then extended to dynamic platoon splitting and merging rules for cooperation among AVs and HVs in response to the high variation in urban traffic flow. Extensive simulation tests are also conducted to demonstrate the performance of the model in various conditions in the mixed traffic flow and different penetration rates of AVs. Our model shows that the cooperation between AVs and HVs can further smooth out the trajectory of the latter and reduce the fuel consumption of the entire traffic system, especially for the low penetration of AVs. It is noteworthy that the proposed model does not compromise the traffic efficiency and the driving comfort while achieving the eco-driving strategy.     

Dissipation of stop-and-go waves via control of autonomous vehicles: Field experiments

Traffic waves are phenomena that emerge when the vehicular density exceeds a critical threshold. Considering the presence of increasingly automated vehicles in the traffic stream, a number of research activities have focused on the influence of automated vehicles on the bulk traffic flow. In the present article, we demonstrate experimentally that intelligent control of an autonomous vehicle is able to dampen stop-and-go waves that can arise even in the absence of geometric or lane changing triggers. Precisely, our experiments on a circular track with more than 20 vehicles show that traffic waves emerge consistently, and that they can be dampened by controlling the velocity of a single vehicle in the flow. We compare metrics for velocity, braking events, and fuel economy across experiments. These experimental findings suggest a paradigm shift in traffic management: flow control will be possible via a few mobile actuators (less than 5%) long before a majority of vehicles have autonomous capabilities.     

Dynamic charging-while-driving systems for freight delivery services with electric vehicles: Traffic and energy modelling

This paper presents a research on traffic modelling developed for assessing traffic and energy performance of electric systems installed along roads for dynamic charging-while-driving (CWD) of fully electric vehicles (FEVs).The logic adopted by the developed traffic model is derived from a particular simulation scenario of electric charging: a freight distribution service operated using medium-sized vans. In this case, the CWD service is used to recover the state of charge of the FEV batteries to shortly start with further activities after arrival at the depot.The CWD system is assumed to be implemented in a multilane ring road with several intermediate on-ramp entrances, where the slowest lane is reserved for the dynamic charging of authorized electric vehicles. A specific traffic model is developed and implemented based on a mesoscopic approach, where energy requirements and charging opportunities affect driving and traffic behaviours. Overtaking manoeuvres as well as new entries in the CWD lane of vehicles that need to charge are modelled according to a cooperative driving system, which manages adequate time gaps between consecutive vehicles. Finally, a speed control strategy is simulated at a defined node to create an empty time-space slot in the CWD lane, by delaying the arriving vehicles. This simulated control, implemented to allow maintenance operations for CWD that may require clearing a charging zone for a short time slot, could also be applied to facilitate on-ramp merging manoeuvres.     

How to assess the benefits of connected vehicles? A simulation framework for the design of cooperative traffic management strategies

Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) allow the transportation community to foresee dramatic improvements for the incoming years in terms of a more efficient, environmental friendly and safe traffic management. In that context, new ITS paradigms like Cooperative Systems (C-ITS) enable an efficient traffic state estimation and traffic control. C-ITS refers to three levels of cooperation between vehicles and infrastructure: (i) equipped vehicles with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) adjusting their motion to surrounding traffic conditions; (ii) information exchange with the infrastructure; (iii) vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Therefore, C-ITS makes it possible to go a step further in providing real time information and tailored control strategies to specific drivers. As a response to an expected increasing penetration rate of these systems, traffic managers and researchers have to come up with new methodologies that override the classic methods of traffic modeling and control. In this paper, we discuss some potentialities of C-ITS for traffic management with the methodological issues following the expansion of such systems. Cooperative traffic models are introduced into an open-source traffic simulator. The resulting simulation framework is robust and able to assess potential benefits of cooperative traffic control strategies in different traffic configurations.     

An algorithm for combining autonomous vehicles and controlled events in driving simulator experiments

Autonomous vehicles can be used to create realistic simulations of surrounding vehicles in driving simulators. However, the use of autonomous vehicles makes it difficult to ensure reproducibility between subjects. In this paper, an effort is made to solve the problem by combining autonomous vehicles and controlled events. A controlled event can be compared to a theatre play. The aim is to achieve the same initial play conditions for each subject, which can be problematic since the traffic situation around the subject will be dependent upon each subject’s actions while driving in autonomous traffic. This paper presents an algorithm that achieves the transition from autonomous traffic to a predefined start condition for a play. The algorithm has been tested in the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) driving simulator III with promising results. In most of the cases we examined the algorithm could reconstruct the specified start condition and conduct the transition from autonomous to controlled mode in a inconspicuous way. Some problems were observed regarding moving unwanted vehicles away from the closest area around the simulator vehicle, and this part of the algorithm has to be enhanced. The experiment also showed that the subjects drove faster in the presence of controlled everyday life traffic normally used in the VTI driving simulator than in autonomous traffic.     

Delivering improved alerts,warnings, and control assistance using basic safety messages transmitted between connected vehicles

When vehicles share their status information with other vehicles or the infrastructure, driving actions can be planned better, hazards can be identified sooner, and safer responses to hazards are possible. The Safety Pilot Model Deployment (SPMD) is underway in Ann Arbor, Michigan; the purpose is to demonstrate connected technologies in a real-world environment. The core data transmitted through Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (or V2V and V2I) applications are called Basic Safety Messages (BSMs), which are transmitted typically at a frequency of 10 Hz. BSMs describe a vehicle’s position (latitude, longitude, and elevation) and motion (heading, speed, and acceleration). This study proposes a data analytic methodology to extract critical information from raw BSM data available from SPMD. A total of 968,522 records of basic safety messages, gathered from 155 trips made by 49 vehicles, was analyzed. The information extracted from BSM data captured extreme driving events such as hard accelerations and braking. This information can be provided to drivers, giving them instantaneous feedback about dangers in surrounding roadway environments; it can also provide control assistance. While extracting critical information from BSMs, this study offers a fundamental understanding of instantaneous driving decisions. Longitudinal and lateral accelerations included in BSMs were specifically investigated. Varying distributions of instantaneous longitudinal and lateral accelerations are quantified. Based on the distributions, the study created a framework for generating alerts/warnings, and control assistance from extreme events, transmittable through V2V and V2I applications. Models were estimated to untangle the correlates of extreme events. The implications of the findings and applications to connected vehicles are discussed in this paper.     

Highway traffic state estimation with mixed connected and conventional vehicles: Microscopic simulation-based testing

This paper presents a thorough microscopic simulation investigation of a recently proposed methodology for highway traffic estimation with mixed traffic, i.e., traffic comprising both connected and conventional vehicles, which employs only speed measurements stemming from connected vehicles and a limited number (sufficient to guarantee observability) of flow measurements from spot sensors. The estimation scheme is tested using the commercial traffic simulator Aimsun under various penetration rates of connected vehicles, employing a traffic scenario that features congested as well as free-flow conditions. The case of mixed traffic comprising conventional and connected vehicles equipped with adaptive cruise control, which feature a systematically different car-following behavior than regular vehicles, is also considered. In both cases, it is demonstrated that the estimation results are satisfactory, even for low penetration rates.     

Orchestration of driving simulator scenarios based on dynamic actor preparation and automated action planning

In driving simulation, a scenario includes definitions of the road environment, the traffic situation, simulated vehicles’ interactions with the participant’s vehicle and measurements that need to be collected. The scenarios need to be designed in such a way that the research questions to be studied can be answered, which commonly imply exposing the participant for a couple of predefined specific situations that has to be both realistic and repeatable. This article presents an integrated algorithm based on Dynamic Actor Preparation and Automated Action Planning to control autonomous simulated vehicles in the simulation in order to generate predefined situations. This algorithm is thus able to plan driving actions for autonomous vehicles based on specific tasks with relevant contextual information as well as handling longitudinal transportation of simulated vehicles based on the contextual information in an automated manner. The conducted experiment shows that the algorithm is able to guarantee repeatability under autonomous traffic flow. The presented algorithm can benefit not only the driving simulation community, but also relevant areas, such as autonomous vehicle and in-vehicle device design by providing them with an algorithm for target pursue and driving task accomplishment, which can be used to design a human-vehicle cooperation system in the coming era of autonomous driving.     

Optimum routing of battery electric vehicles: Insights using empirical data and microsimulation

This study investigates the energy consumption impact of route selection on battery electric vehicles (BEVs) using empirical second-by-second Global Positioning System (GPS) commute data and traffic micro-simulation data. Drivers typically choose routes that reduce travel time and therefore travel cost. However, BEVs’ limited driving range makes energy efficient route selection of particular concern to BEV drivers. In addition, BEVs’ regenerative braking systems allow for the recovery of energy while braking, which is affected by route choices. State-of-the-art BEV energy consumption models consider a simplified constant regenerative braking energy efficiency or average speed dependent regenerative braking factors. To overcome these limitations, this study adopted a microscopic BEV energy consumption model, which captures the effect of transient behavior on BEV energy consumption and recovery while braking in a congested network. The study found that BEVs and conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) had different fuel/energy-optimized traffic assignments, suggesting that different routings be recommended for electric vehicles. For the specific case study, simulation results indicate that a faster route could actually increase BEV energy consumption, and that significant energy savings were observed when BEVs utilized a longer travel time route because energy is regenerated. Finally, the study found that regenerated energy was greatly affected by facility types and congestion levels and also BEVs’ energy efficiency could be significantly influenced by regenerated energy.     

Infrastructure assisted adaptive driving to stabilise heterogeneous vehicle strings

Literature has shown potentials of Connected/Cooperative Automated Vehicles (CAVs) in improving highway operations, especially on roadway capacity and flow stability. However, benefits were also shown to be negligible at low market penetration rates. This work develops a novel adaptive driving strategy for CAVs to stabilise heterogeneous vehicle strings by controlling one CAV under vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. Assumed is a roadside system with V2I communications, which receives control parameters of the CAV in the string and estimates parameters imperfectly of non-connected automated vehicles. It determines the adaptive control parameters (e.g. desired time gap and feedback gains) of the CAV if a downstream disturbance is identified and sends them to the CAV. The CAV changes its behaviour based on the adaptive parameters commanded by the roadside system to suppress the disturbance.The proposed adaptive driving strategy is based on string stability analysis of heterogeneous vehicle strings. To this end, linearised vehicle dynamics model and control law are used in the controller parametrisation and Laplace transform of the speed and gap error dynamics in time domain to frequency domain enables the determination of sufficient string stability criteria of heterogeneous strings. The analytical string stability conditions give new insights into automated vehicular string stability properties in relation to the system properties of time delays and controller design parameters of feedback gains and desired time gap. It further allows the quantification of a stability margin, which is subsequently used to adapt the feedback control gains and desired time gap of the CAV to suppress the amplification of gap and speed errors through the string.Analytical results are verified via systematic simulation of both homogeneous and heterogeneous strings. Simulation demonstrates the predictive power of the analytical string stability conditions. The performance of the adaptive driving strategy under V2I cooperation is tested in simulation. Results show that even the estimation of control parameters of non-connected automated vehicles are imperfect and there is mismatch between the model used in analytical derivation and that in simulation, the proposed adaptive driving strategy suppresses disturbances in a wide range of situations.