Field tests of a dynamic green driving strategy based on inter-vehicle communication

This paper presents the design and results for field tests regarding the environmental benefits in stop-and-go traffic of an algorithmic green driving strategy based on inter-vehicle communication (IVC), which was proposed in Yang and Jin (2014). The green driving strategy dynamically calculates advisory speed limits for vehicles equipped with IVC devices so as to smooth their speed profiles and reduce their emissions and fuel consumption. For the field tests, we develop a smartphone-based IVC system, in which vehicles’ speeds and locations are collected by GPS and accelerometer sensors embedded in smartphones, and communications among vehicles are enabled by specially designed smartphone applications, a central server, and 4G cellular networks. Six field tests are carried out on an uninterrupted ring road under slow or fast stop-and-go traffic conditions. We compare the performances of three alternatives: no green driving, heuristic green driving, and the IVC-based algorithmic green driving. Results show that heuristic green driving has better smoothing and environmental effects than no green driving, but the IVC-based algorithmic green driving outperforms both. In the future, we are interested in field tests under more realistic traffic conditions.     

船舶甲板智能抛丸机器人设计

为解决在船舶外场涂装阶段除锈和拉毛施工效率低、质量不稳定、环境污染严重等问题,设计一款用于船舶甲板的智能抛丸机器人。简介该型机器人系统组成,阐述其抛丸分系统、除尘分系统和越障辅助机构的硬件设计及其软件设计,并设计手动遥控和自主导引操作方式。实船测试结果表明,该型机器人可满足船舶甲板除锈清理的工作要求。     

Analysis of volatility in driving regimes extracted from basic safety messages transmitted between connected vehicles

Driving volatility captures the extent of speed variations when a vehicle is being driven. Extreme longitudinal variations signify hard acceleration or braking. Warnings and alerts given to drivers can reduce such volatility potentially improving safety, energy use, and emissions. This study develops a fundamental understanding of instantaneous driving decisions, needed for hazard anticipation and notification systems, and distinguishes normal from anomalous driving. In this study, driving task is divided into distinct yet unobserved regimes. The research issue is to characterize and quantify these regimes in typical driving cycles and the associated volatility of each regime, explore when the regimes change and the key correlates associated with each regime. Using Basic Safety Message (BSM) data from the Safety Pilot Model Deployment in Ann Arbor, Michigan, two- and three-regime Dynamic Markov switching models are estimated for several trips undertaken on various roadway types. While thousands of instrumented vehicles with vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication systems are being tested, nearly 1.4 million records of BSMs, from 184 trips undertaken by 71 instrumented vehicles are analyzed in this study. Then even more detailed analysis of 43 randomly chosen trips (N = 714,340 BSM records) that were undertaken on various roadway types is conducted. The results indicate that acceleration and deceleration are two distinct regimes, and as compared to acceleration, drivers decelerate at higher rates, and braking is significantly more volatile than acceleration. Different correlations of the two regimes with instantaneous driving contexts are explored. With a more generic three-regime model specification, the results reveal high-rate acceleration, high-rate deceleration, and cruise/constant as the three distinct regimes that characterize a typical driving cycle. Moreover, given in a high-rate regime, drivers’ on-average tend to decelerate at a higher rate than their rate of acceleration. Importantly, compared to cruise/constant regime, drivers’ instantaneous driving decisions are more volatile both in “high-rate” acceleration as well as “high-rate” deceleration regime. The study contributes to analyzing volatility in short-term driving decisions, and how changes in driving regimes can be mapped to a combination of local traffic states surrounding the vehicle.     

Socially optimal electric driving range of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles

This study determines the optimal electric driving range of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) that minimizes the daily cost borne by the society when using this technology. An optimization framework is developed and applied to datasets representing the US market. Results indicate that the optimal range is 16 miles with an average social cost of $3.19 per day when exclusively charging at home, compared to $3.27 per day of driving a conventional vehicle. The optimal range is found to be sensitive to the cost of battery packs and the price of gasoline. When workplace charging is available, the optimal electric driving range surprisingly increases from 16 to 22 miles, as larger batteries would allow drivers to better take advantage of the charging opportunities to achieve longer electrified travel distances, yielding social cost savings. If workplace charging is available, the optimal density is to deploy a workplace charger for every 3.66 vehicles. Moreover, the diversification of the battery size, i.e., introducing a pair and triple of electric driving ranges to the market, could further decrease the average societal cost per PHEV by 7.45% and 11.5% respectively.     

面向智能车辆的现役道路设施行驶适应性研究综述

为了总结面向智能车辆的现役道路设施行驶适应性，即现役道路基础设施承载智能车辆行驶的适宜程度，阐述自主智能驾驶定义与驾驶自动化等级分类，在此基础上剖析不同等级间的人机功能差异，并分别从感知层、感知-决策层、决策-控制层探讨与道路设计要素相关联的人机功能差异，通过归纳总结智能车辆与道路几何要素、路面性能及其他道路要素(如道路标线)的相互作用机制研究，从道路工程角度及其他道路要素方面回顾该领域的研究现状，指出存在的问题和未来发展方向。研究结果表明：相比传统车辆，配置高等级自动驾驶系统的智能车辆对现役道路设施行驶适应性最高，主动安全系统次之，而驾驶辅助及有条件自动驾驶系统适应性不足。而目前研究主要问题包括：难以归纳、标定不同驾驶自动化等级间的人机功能差异及其对于道路设计参数的需求设计值；测试道路场景条件过于理想，考虑的驾驶自动化等级单一，试验规模和样本有限；道路几何、路面性能以及道路标志、标线等道路要素与智能车辆间的相互作用机制研究不足，缺乏与不同道路场景相匹配的智能车辆驾驶特征数据的获取手段。因此建议：重视并推动与道路设计要素相关联的关键人机功能差异指标信息共享；联合高保真且可交互的道路场景、高精度感知传感器物理模型、车辆动力学模型及微观交通流模型，利用测试场景自动化生成、极限工况场景搜寻与泛化等技术开展智能驾驶虚拟测试，突破现有研究的深度和广度；探索反映不同等级智能车辆的道路行驶适应性特征指标与评价标准，精准、有效地评估预测复杂道路场景及不利道路条件下的行驶适应性。     

Human-like autonomous car-following model with deep reinforcement learning

This study proposes a framework for human-like autonomous car-following planning based on deep reinforcement learning (deep RL). Historical driving data are fed into a simulation environment where an RL agent learns from trial and error interactions based on a reward function that signals how much the agent deviates from the empirical data. Through these interactions, an optimal policy, or car-following model that maps in a human-like way from speed, relative speed between a lead and following vehicle, and inter-vehicle spacing to acceleration of a following vehicle is finally obtained. The model can be continuously updated when more data are fed in. Two thousand car-following periods extracted from the 2015 Shanghai Naturalistic Driving Study were used to train the model and compare its performance with that of traditional and recent data-driven car-following models. As shown by this study’s results, a deep deterministic policy gradient car-following model that uses disparity between simulated and observed speed as the reward function and considers a reaction delay of 1 s, denoted as DDPGvRT, can reproduce human-like car-following behavior with higher accuracy than traditional and recent data-driven car-following models. Specifically, the DDPGvRT model has a spacing validation error of 18% and speed validation error of 5%, which are less than those of other models, including the intelligent driver model, models based on locally weighted regression, and conventional neural network-based models. Moreover, the DDPGvRT demonstrates good capability of generalization to various driving situations and can adapt to different drivers by continuously learning. This study demonstrates that reinforcement learning methodology can offer insight into driver behavior and can contribute to the development of human-like autonomous driving algorithms and traffic-flow models.     

新建隧道下穿多座隧道施工技术

以渝黔引入贵阳枢纽铁路龙宝冲隧道下穿6座已建及在建隧道工程为例,结合现场,详细分析、介绍了下穿隧道施工方案、原则、施工方法;提出了新建铁路隧道近距离下穿隧道交叉点附近施工爆破控制、防护方案,以及新建、既有隧道的监控量测、超前地质预报、安全性评估与评价等施工技术;解决了下穿隧道施工中既保证新建隧道施工安全,又保证既有隧道不受影响的问题。     

磁力摩擦式辅助驱动在TBM连续皮带机中的应用

长大隧道TBM(tunnel boring machine)施工大多采用连续皮带机出渣,当运输距离较大时通常需要在中间增设辅助驱动,以降低胶带最大张力,从而降低胶带强度。为了提高辅助驱动的工程适应性,研发了磁力摩擦式辅助驱动系统,具有驱动力大、无二次转载、胶带无二次冲击损伤、结构简单、故障点少、结构紧凑占用空间小、安装方便和配置灵活等特点。该成果可用于采用钢丝绳芯胶带的TBM连续皮带机、支洞皮带机以及其他需要辅助驱动的胶带输送机,并在山西省中部引黄工程TBM1标段成功应用,具有广阔的推广应用价值。     

基于SHEL和三角模糊数理论的地铁钻爆法施工安全评价方法研究

为合理应用决策数据中不同专家的背景知识,找出地铁施工过程中安全测评体系的关注重点,根据地铁施工的特点和SHEL安全模型理论,建立以人-软件(L-S)、人-硬件(L-H)、人-环境(L-E)和人-人(L-L)4个环节为基础的钻爆法地铁施工安全指标体系。请专家给出指标语义评价等级和指标权重语义评价等级,并根据其与三角模糊数的对应关系分别得出三角模糊数评价值。针对不同专家的重要性程度差异,提出基于三角模糊数的群一致性评价方法,得出专家综合权重,集结评价数据,最终得到安全评价结果。最后,对青岛地铁1号线过海段进行实例分析。结果表明,该方法可以解决群评价过程中专家个体权威与群体共识难以兼顾的问题,能够充分利用群决策中的原始评价信息,提高地铁施工安全水平评价的准确性。