No Arabic abstract
In this study, we propose a rotation-based connected automated vehicle (CAV) distributed cooperative control strategy for an on-ramp merging scenario. By assuming the mainline and ramp line are straight, we firstly design a virtual rotation approach that transfers the merging problem to a virtual car following (CF) problem to reduce the complexity and dimension of the cooperative CAVs merging control. Based on this concept, a multiple-predecessor virtual CF model and a unidirectional multi-leader communication topology are developed to determine the longitudinal behavior of each CAV. Specifically, we exploit a distributed feedback and feedforward longitudinal controller in preparation for actively generating gaps for merging CAVs, reducing the voids caused by merging, and ensuring safety and traffic efficiency during the process. To ensure the disturbance attenuation property of this system, practical string stability is mathematically proved for the virtual CF controllers to prohibit the traffic oscillation amplification through the traffic stream. Moreover, as a provision for extending the virtual CF application scenarios of any curvy ramp geometry, we utilize a curvilinear coordinate to model the two-dimensional merging control, and further design a local lateral controller based on an extended linear-quadratic regulator to regulate the position deviation and angular deviation of the lane centerlines. For the purpose of systematically evaluating the control performance of the proposed methods, numerical simulation experiments are conducted. As the results indicate, the proposed controllers can actively reduce the void and meanwhile guarantee the damping of traffic oscillations in the merging control area.
This paper presents a cooperative vehicle sorting strategy that seeks to optimally sort connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) in a multi-lane platoon to reach an ideally organized platoon. In the proposed method, a CAV platoon is firstly discretized into a grid system, where a CAV moves from one cell to another in the discrete time-space domain. Then, the cooperative sorting problem is modeled as a path-finding problem in the graphic domain. The problem is solved by the deterministic Astar algorithm with a stepwise strategy, where only one vehicle can move within a movement step. The resultant shortest path is further optimized with an integer linear programming algorithm to minimize the sorting time by allowing multiple movements within a step. To improve the algorithm running time and address multiple shortest paths, a distributed stochastic Astar algorithm (DSA) is developed by introducing random disturbances to the edge costs to break uniform paths (with equal path cost). Numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DSA method. The results report shorter sorting time and significantly improved algorithm running time due to the use of DSA. In addition, we find that the optimization performance can be further improved by increasing the number of processes in the distributed computing system.
We propose a fully distributed control system architecture, amenable to in-vehicle implementation, that aims to safely coordinate connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) in road intersections. For control purposes, we build upon a fully distributed model predictive control approach, in which the agents solve a nonconvex optimal control problem (OCP) locally and synchronously, and exchange their optimized trajectories via vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. To accommodate a fast solution of the nonconvex OCPs, we apply the penalty convex-concave procedure which aims to solve a convexified version of the original OCP. For experimental evaluation, we complement the predictive controller with a localization layer, being in charge of self-localization and the estimation of joint collision points with other agents. Moreover, we come up with a proprietary communication protocol to exchange trajectories with other agents. Experimental tests reveal the efficacy of proposed control system architecture.
Ramp merging is considered as one of the major causes of traffic congestion and accidents because of its chaotic nature. With the development of connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technology, cooperative ramp merging has become one of the popular solutions to this problem. In a mixed traffic situation, CAVs will not only interact with each other, but also handle complicated situations with human-driven vehicles involved. In this paper, a game theory-based ramp merging strategy has been developed for the optimal merging coordination of CAVs in the mixed traffic, which determines dynamic merging sequence and corresponding longitudinal/lateral control. This strategy improves the safety and efficiency of the merging process by ensuring a safe inter-vehicle distance among the involved vehicles and harmonizing the speed of CAVs in the traffic stream. To verify the proposed strategy, mixed traffic simulations under different penetration rates and different congestion levels have been carried out on an innovative Unity-SUMO integrated platform, which connects a game engine-based driving simulator with a traffic simulator. This platform allows the human driver to participate in the simulation, and also equip CAVs with more realistic sensing systems. In the traffic flow level simulation test, Unity takes over the sensing and control of all CAVs in the simulation, while SUMO handles the behavior of all legacy vehicles. The results show that the average speed of traffic flow can be increased up to 110%, and the fuel consumption can be reduced up to 77%, respectively.
Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) is an autonomous vehicle-following technology that allows groups of vehicles on the highway to form in tightly-coupled platoons. This is accomplished by exchanging inter-vehicle data through Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) wireless communication networks. CACC increases traffic throughput and safety, and decreases fuel consumption. However, the surge of vehicle connectivity has brought new security challenges as vehicular networks increasingly serve as new access points for adversaries trying to deteriorate the platooning performance or even cause collisions. In this manuscript, we propose a novel attack detection scheme that leverage real-time sensor/network data and physics-based mathematical models of vehicles in the platoon. Nevertheless, even the best detection scheme could lead to conservative detection results because of unavoidable modelling uncertainties, network effects (delays, quantization, communication dropouts), and noise. It is hard (often impossible) for any detector to distinguish between these different perturbation sources and actual attack signals. This enables adversaries to launch a range of attack strategies that can surpass the detection scheme by hiding within the system uncertainty. Here, we provide risk assessment tools (in terms of semidefinite programs) for Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) to quantify the potential effect of attacks that remain hidden from the detector (referred here as emph{stealthy attacks}). A numerical case-study is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of our methods.
The paper considers the problem of controlling Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) traveling through a three-entry roundabout so as to jointly minimize both the travel time and the energy consumption while providing speed-dependent safety guarantees, as well as satisfying velocity and acceleration constraints. We first design a systematic approach to dynamically determine the safety constraints and derive the unconstrained optimal control solution. A joint optimal control and barrier function (OCBF) method is then applied to efficiently obtain a controller that optimally track the unconstrained optimal solution while guaranteeing all the constraints. Simulation experiments are performed to compare the optimal controller to a baseline of human-driven vehicles showing effectiveness under symmetric and asymmetric roundabout configurations, balanced and imbalanced traffic rates and different sequencing rules for CAVs.