Vehicle platoon formation using interpolating control: A laboratory experimental analysis

This work addresses the formation phase of automatic platooning. The objective is to optimally control the throttle of vehicles, with a given arbitrary initial condition, such that desired ground speed and inter-vehicular spacings are reached. The steering of the vehicles is also controlled, because the vehicles should track a desired path while forming the platoon. In order to address the platoon formation problem, a cooperative strategy is formed by constructing a discrete state space model which represents the dynamics of a set of n vehicles. Once this model is set, a control method known as Interpolating Control, which aims at regulating to the origin an uncertain and/or time-varying linear discrete-time system with state and control constraints, is utilized. The performance of this control method is evaluated and compared with other approaches such as Model Predictive Control (MPC).Simulations are conducted which suggest that the Interpolating Control approach can be seen as an alternative to optimization-based control schemes such as Model Predictive Control, especially for problems for which finding the optimal solution requires calculations, where the Interpolating Control approach can provide a straightforward sub-optimal solution.In the experimental part of this work, the control algorithms for the platoon formation and path tracking problems are combined, and tested in a laboratory environment, using three mobile robots equipped with wireless routers. Validation of the proposed models and control algorithms is achieved by successful experiments.     

Model based urban traffic control,part II: Coordinated model predictive controllers

The present paper describes how to use coordination between neighbouring intersections in order to improve the performance of urban traffic controllers. Both the local MPC (LMPC) introduced in the companion paper (Hao et al., 2018) and the coordinated MPC (CMPC) introduced in this paper use the urban cell transmission model (UCTM) (Hao et al., 2018) in order to predict the average delay of vehicles in the upstream links of each intersection, for different scenarios of switching times of the traffic lights at that intersection. The feedback controller selects the next switching times of the traffic light corresponding to the shortest predicted average delay. While the local MPC (Hao et al., 2018) only uses local measurements of traffic in the links connected to the intersection in comparing the performance of different scenarios, the CMPC approach improves the accuracy of the performance predictions by allowing a control agent to exchange information about planned switching times with control agents at all neighbouring intersections. Compared to local MPC the offline information on average flow rates from neighbouring intersections is replaced in coordinated MPC by additional online information on when the neighbouring intersections plan to send vehicles to the intersection under control. To achieve good coordination planned switching times should not change too often, hence a cost for changing planned schedules from one decision time to the next decision time is added to the cost function. In order to improve the stability properties of CMPC a prediction of the sum of squared queue sizes is used whenever some downstream queues of an intersection become too long. Only scenarios that decrease this sum of squares of local queues are considered for possible implementation. This stabilization criterion is shown experimentally to further improve the performance of our controller. In particular it leads to a significant reduction of the queues that build up at the edges of the traffic region under control. We compare via simulation the average delay of vehicles travelling on a simple 4 by 4 Manhattan grid, for traffic lights with pre-timed control, traffic lights using the local MPC controller (Hao et al., 2018), and coordinated MPC (with and without the stabilizing condition). These simulations show that the proposed CMPC achieves a significant reduction in delay for different traffic conditions in comparison to these other strategies.     

沥青路面压实性能影响因素分析

将影响沥青路面压实的因素归纳为材料因素、结构和环境因素以及压实机具等,并对这些影响因素进行较为全面的分析,充分认识这些因素的作用机理对于在施工中提高沥青路面的压实质量和长期性能具有重大意义。     

水泥混凝土路面出现蜂窝和麻面的原因及预防措施

混凝土的蜂窝和麻面问题严重危害了混凝土的结构性能和外观。对混凝土的蜂窝和麻面现象的原因进行探究,并提出具体的预防和解决措施,可促进施工质量达到相关规范、设计要求。     

港珠澳大桥建设对珠三角地区物流业的影响

港珠澳大桥将改变珠江口东西两岸之间的空间运输联系方式,从而改变整个珠三角地区的物流格局.从珠三角地区城市空间布局结构、产业特点出发,总结珠三角地区物流业特点,对港珠澳大桥影响珠三角物流格局的途径进行介绍；并逐一分析港珠澳大桥建成后对香港、深圳、珠海等珠三角主要城市物流业的不同影响.     

采空区高速公路路基变形失稳的影响因素

矿体开采后会留下采空区.许多公路、铁路需要建在采空区之上或穿越这些采空区,面临因采空区塌陷所导致的路基失稳与破坏问题.了解采空区影响高速公路路基变形失稳的因素,对于有效避免此类病害发生具有重要指导意义.     

Hardware-in-the-loop testbed for evaluating connected vehicle applications

Connected vehicle environment provides the groundwork of future road transportation. Researches in this area are gaining a lot of attention to improve not only traffic mobility and safety, but also vehicles’ fuel consumption and emissions. Energy optimization methods that combine traffic information are proposed, but actual testing in the field proves to be rather challenging largely due to safety and technical issues. In light of this, a Hardware-in-the-Loop-System (HiLS) testbed to evaluate the performance of connected vehicle applications is proposed. A laboratory powertrain research platform, which consists of a real engine, an engine-loading device (hydrostatic dynamometer) and a virtual powertrain model to represent a vehicle, is connected remotely to a microscopic traffic simulator (VISSIM). Vehicle dynamics and road conditions of a target vehicle in the VISSIM simulation are transmitted to the powertrain research platform through the internet, where the power demand can then be calculated. The engine then operates through an engine optimization procedure to minimize fuel consumption, while the dynamometer tracks the desired engine load based on the target vehicle information. Test results show fast data transfer at every 200 ms and good tracking of the optimized engine operating points and the desired vehicle speed. Actual fuel and emissions measurements, which otherwise could not be calculated precisely by fuel and emission maps in simulations, are achieved by the testbed. In addition, VISSIM simulation can be implemented remotely while connected to the powertrain research platform through the internet, allowing easy access to the laboratory setup.     

Conflict-free arrival and departure trajectory planning for parallel runway with advanced point-merge system

In this paper, an efficient trajectory planning system is proposed to solve the integration of arrivals and departures on parallel runways with a novel route network system. Our first effort is made in designing an advanced Point Merge (PM) route network named Multi-Level Point Merge (ML-PM) to meet the requirements of parallel runway operations. Then, more efforts are paid on finding a complete and efficient framework capable of dynamically modelling the integration of arrival and departure trajectories on parallel runways, modelling the conflict detection and resolution in presence of curved trajectory and radius-to-fix merging process. After that, a suitable mathematical optimization formulation is built up. Receding Horizon Control (RHC) and Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithms are proposed to search the near-optimal solution for the large scale trajectories in routine dense operations. Taking Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) as a study case, the experimental results show that our system shows good performances on the management of arrivals and departures. It can automatically solve all the potential conflicts in presence of dense traffic flows. With its unique ML-PM route network, it can realize a shorter flying time and a near-Continuous Descent Approach (CDA) descent for arrival aircraft, an economical climbing for departure aircraft, an easier runway allocation together with trajectory control solutions. It shows a good and dynamic sequencing efficiency in Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA). In mixed ML-PM mode, under tested conditions, our proposed system can increase throughput at BCIA around 26%, compared with baseline. The methodology defined here could be easily applied to airports worldwide.     

基于基准有限元模型的箱梁TMD振动控制研究

针对高架桥梁结构引起的振动噪声问题,研究TMD控制箱梁结构振动的特性。为了获得精准的箱梁有限元模型,首先以铁路32 m简支箱梁桥为原型,按10:1的几何相似比设计制作简支箱梁缩尺试验模型,应用ANSYS软件建立初始动力有限元模型;对有限元模型模态分析与试验模型模态测试得到的自由模态信息进行误差分析,并采用基于灵敏度分析的模型修正技术对初始动力有限元模型弹性模量和密度进行修正,得到基准有限元模型,误差确认结果显示修正后的有限元模型更精准地反应箱梁的振动特性;进一步利用基准有限元模型,开展TMD控制简支箱梁桥振动的研究,研究结果表明TMD对于抑制桥梁竖向共振有很好的效果。