Parents’ perspectives on using autonomous vehicles to enhance children’s mobility

Prior research has estimated the impact of an autonomous vehicle (AV) environment on the mobility of underserved populations such as adult non-drivers. What is currently unknown is the impact of AVs on enhancing the mobility of children who are also mobility disadvantaged, as child passengers are likely part of AV ridership scenarios in the perceivable future. To address this question, our study collected perceived benefits and concerns of AVs from a US convenience sample of parents whose children relied on them for mobility. We found that parents’ intentions to travel in AV and their technology readiness as well as parent (sex, residence area) and child (age, restraint system) demographic profiles were important determinants of potential AV acceptance and impact. In addition, two groups of potential AV users emerged from the data: the curious and the practical. This study addresses a gap in the literature by assessing parents’ perspectives on using AVs to transport children. The results have great potentials to guide the design of mobility features, safety evaluations, and implementation policies, as a decline in public interest in AVs has been recently documented.     

Transit-oriented autonomous vehicle operation with integrated demand-supply interaction

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) represent potentially disruptive and innovative changes to public transportation (PT) systems. However, the exact interplay between AV and PT is understudied in existing research. This paper proposes a systematic approach to the design, simulation, and evaluation of integrated autonomous vehicle and public transportation (AV + PT) systems. Two features distinguish this research from the state of the art in the literature: the first is the transit-oriented AV operation with the purpose of supporting existing PT modes; the second is the explicit modeling of the interaction between demand and supply.We highlight the transit-orientation by identifying the synergistic opportunities between AV and PT, which makes AVs more acceptable to all the stakeholders and respects the social-purpose considerations such as maintaining service availability and ensuring equity. Specifically, AV is designed to serve first-mile connections to rail stations and provide efficient shared mobility in low-density suburban areas. The interaction between demand and supply is modeled using a set of system dynamics equations and solved as a fixed-point problem through an iterative simulation procedure. We develop an agent-based simulation platform of service and a discrete choice model of demand as two subproblems. Using a feedback loop between supply and demand, we capture the interaction between the decisions of the service operator and those of the travelers and model the choices of both parties. Considering uncertainties in demand prediction and stochasticity in simulation, we also evaluate the robustness of our fixed-point solution and demonstrate the convergence of the proposed method empirically.We test our approach in a major European city, simulating scenarios with various fleet sizes, vehicle capacities, fare schemes, and hailing strategies such as in-advance requests. Scenarios are evaluated from the perspectives of passengers, AV operators, PT operators, and urban mobility system. Results show the trade off between the level of service and the operational cost, providing insight for fleet sizing to reach the optimal balance. Our simulated experiments show that encouraging ride-sharing, allowing in-advance requests, and combining fare with transit help enable service integration and encourage sustainable travel. Both the transit-oriented AV operation and the demand-supply interaction are essential components for defining and assessing the roles of the AV technology in our future transportation systems, especially those with ample and robust transit networks.     

A cell transmission model for dynamic lane reversal with autonomous vehicles

Autonomous vehicles admit consideration of novel traffic behaviors such as reservation-based intersection controls and dynamic lane reversal. We present a cell transmission model formulation for dynamic lane reversal. For deterministic demand, we formulate the dynamic lane reversal control problem for a single link as an integer program and derive theoretical results. In reality, demand is not known perfectly at arbitrary times in the future. To address stochastic demand, we present a Markov decision process formulation. Due to the large state size, the Markov decision process is intractable. However, based on theoretical results from the integer program, we derive an effective heuristic. We demonstrate significant improvements over a fixed lane configuration both on a single bottleneck link with varying demands, and on the downtown Austin network.     

“最后一公里”无人车配送发展现状及应用前景

新冠肺炎疫情防控期间,面对隔离医院或社区生活必需品和医疗物资的需求压力,无人配送系统因其"高效率"、"零感染"等特点,凸显了其在"最后一公里"末端配送服务链中的重要作用。本文梳理了城市"最后一公里"配送的主要特征,分析了疫情防控期间"最后一公里"配送的主要痛点,探讨了无人车配送优势及难点。在系统调研国内外"最后一公里"无人配送商业化进程以及疫情防控期间无人配送车小范围应用的基础上,总结整理了无人车配送的关键研究成果以及未来研究方向。最后探讨了"最后一公里"无人车配送的应用前景,以及落地的技术路径及发展趋势。     

Real-time motion planning methods for autonomous on-road driving: State-of-the-art and future research directions

Currently autonomous or self-driving vehicles are at the heart of academia and industry research because of its multi-faceted advantages that includes improved safety, reduced congestion, lower emissions and greater mobility. Software is the key driving factor underpinning autonomy within which planning algorithms that are responsible for mission-critical decision making hold a significant position. While transporting passengers or goods from a given origin to a given destination, motion planning methods incorporate searching for a path to follow, avoiding obstacles and generating the best trajectory that ensures safety, comfort and efficiency. A range of different planning approaches have been proposed in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to review existing approaches and then compare and contrast different methods employed for the motion planning of autonomous on-road driving that consists of (1) finding a path, (2) searching for the safest manoeuvre and (3) determining the most feasible trajectory. Methods developed by researchers in each of these three levels exhibit varying levels of complexity and performance accuracy. This paper presents a critical evaluation of each of these methods, in terms of their advantages/disadvantages, inherent limitations, feasibility, optimality, handling of obstacles and testing operational environments.Based on a critical review of existing methods, research challenges to address current limitations are identified and future research directions are suggested so as to enhance the performance of planning algorithms at all three levels. Some promising areas of future focus have been identified as the use of vehicular communications (V2V and V2I) and the incorporation of transport engineering aspects in order to improve the look-ahead horizon of current sensing technologies that are essential for planning with the aim of reducing the total cost of driverless vehicles. This critical review on planning techniques presented in this paper, along with the associated discussions on their constraints and limitations, seek to assist researchers in accelerating development in the emerging field of autonomous vehicle research.     

水下船舶判定海面海况技术研究

通过对水下船舶的海浪观测谱分析,提出水下船舶适用的测海况模型,并对该模型进行实验验证,为该类装置的技术改进提供理论和实验支持。     

Legal regulation of autonomous driving technology: Current conditions and issues in Japan

In Japan, the Road Transport Vehicle Act and the Road Traffic Act were revised after consideration of autonomous driving vehicles operating on public roads. These revisions have considerably reduced the legal obstacles to the operation of autonomous driving vehicles with technology comparable to SAE level 3 on public roads significantly.To consider the remaining legal matters that could arise while autonomous vehicle is running, the newly amended acts are worth examining. In interpreting the purpose and the details included in the amendments, the key concepts for allowing running of the autonomous vehicle such as that of a driver, the operational design domain (ODD) and the related concepts are reviewed.     

水下船体表面清刷作业机器人的控制系统

水下船体表面清刷作业机器人是一种新型的用于水下特种作业的机器人。作者从电机驱动、姿态检测、自主控制等几个方面进行了机器人控制系统的硬件及软件设计，实验结果表明控制系统性能达到了设计要求。     

潜射导弹无动力运载器的滚控暨分离技术研究（续）

导弹水下发射无动力运载器需要滚动控制技术，但该技术在当前研制的静力分离运载器中难于实施。鉴于此，本文提出一种新的弹器分离方案-动力分离方案（即弹射分离方案）。文中对动力分离运载器的结构和弹道性能作了较详细的介绍，并与静力分离方案作了较全面的比较。     

水下船体表面清刷机器人方案研究

介绍一种新型的用于船体表面清刷、涂装等作业的水下船体表面清刷机器人总体组成、基本功能和工作原理，并提出了机械本体、清刷作业装置和控制系统三部分的设计方案。该机器人具有工作效率高，安全性好等优点。