Advanced Autonomous Vehicle Design For Severe Environments

Classical vehicle dynamics, which is the basis for manned ground vehicle design, has exhausted its potential for providing novel design concepts to a large degree. At the same time, unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) dynamics is still in its infancy and is currently being developed using general analytical dynamics principles with very little input from actual vehicle dynamics theory. This technical book presents outcomes from the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) ‘Advanced Autonomous Vehicle Design for Severe Environments’, held in Coventry, UK, in July 2014. The ASI provided a platform for world class professionals to meet and discuss leading-edge research, engineering accomplishments and future trends in manned and unmanned ground vehicle dynamics, terrain mobility and energy efficiency. The outcomes of this collective effort serve as an analytical foundation for autonomous vehicle design. Topics covered include: historical aspects, pivotal accomplishments and the analysis of future trends in on- and off-road manned and unmanned vehicle dynamics; terramechanics, soil dynamic characteristics, uncertainties and stochastic characteristics of vehicle-environment interaction for agile vehicle dynamics modeling; new methods and techniques in on-line control and learning for vehicle autonomy; fundamentals of agility and severe environments; mechatronics and cyber-physics issues of agile vehicle dynamics to design for control, energy harvesting and cyber security; and case studies of agile and inverse vehicle dynamics and vehicle systems design, including optimisation of suspension and driveline systems. The book targets graduate students, who desire to advance further in leading-edge vehicle dynamics topics in manned and unmanned ground vehicles, PhD students continuing their research work and building advanced curricula in academia and industry, and researchers in government agencies and private companies.

This book presents the recent research adoption of a variety of enabling wireless communication technologies like RFID tags, BLE, ZigBee, etc., and embedded sensor and actuator nodes, and various protocols like CoAP, MQTT, DNS, etc., that has made Internet of things (IoT) to step out of its infancy to become smart things. Now, smart sensors can collaborate directly with the machine without human involvement to automate decision making or to control a task. Smart technologies including green electronics, green radios, fuzzy neural approaches, and intelligent signal processing techniques play important roles in the developments of the wearable healthcare systems. In the proceedings of 5th International Conference on Internet of Things and Connected Technologies (ICIoTCT), 2020, brought out research works on the advances in the Internet of things (IoT) and connected technologies (various protocols, standards, etc.). This conference aimed at providing a forum to discuss the recent advances in enabling technologies and applications for IoT.

Self-driving cars are no longer in the realm of science fiction, thanks to the integration of numerous automotive technologies that have matured over many years. Technologies such as adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, and V2V/V2I communications are being merged into one complex system. The papers in this compendium were carefully selected to bring the reader up to date on successful demonstrations of autonomous vehicles, ongoing projects, and what the future may hold for this technology. It is divided into three sections: overview, major design and test collaborations, and a sampling of autonomous vehicle research projects. The comprehensive overview paper covers the current state of autonomous vehicle research and development as well as obstacles to overcome and a possible roadmap for major new technology developments and collaborative relationships. The section on major design and test collaborations covers Sartre, DARPA contests, and the USDOT and the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership-Vehicle Safety Communications (CAMP-VSC2) Consortium. The final section presents seven SAE papers on significant recent and ongoing research by individual companies on a variety of approaches to autonomous vehicles. This book will be of interest to a wide range of readers: engineers at automakers and electronic component suppliers; software engineers; computer systems analysts and architects; academics and researchers within the electronics, computing, and automotive industries; legislators, managers, and other decision-makers in the government highway sector; traffic safety professionals; and insurance and legal practitioners.

This book presents essential knowledge of car vehicle dynamics and control theory with NI LabVIEW software product application, resulting in a practical yet highly technical guide for designing advanced vehicle dynamics and vehicle system controllers. Presenting a clear overview of fundamental vehicle dynamics and vehicle system mathematical models, the book covers linear and non-linear design of model based controls such as wheel slip control, vehicle speed control, path following control, vehicle stability and rollover control, stabilization of vehicle-trailer system. Specific applications to autonomous vehicles are described among the methods. It details the practical applications of Kalman-Bucy filtering and the observer design for sensor signal estimation, alongside lateral vehicle dynamics and vehicle rollover dynamics. The book also discusses high level controllers, alongside a clear explanation of basic control principles for regenerative braking in both electric and hybrid vehicles, and wheel torque vectoring systems. Concrete LabVIEW simulation examples of how the models and controls are used in representative applications, along with software algorithms and LabVIEW block diagrams are illustrated. It will be of interest to engineering students, automotive engineering students and automotive engineers and researchers.

The Autonomous Vehicle (AV) has been strongly heralded as the most exciting innovation in automobility for decades. Autonomous Vehicles are no longer an innovation of the future (seen only in science fiction) but are now being road-tested for use. And yet while the technical and economic success and possibilities of the AV have been widely debated, there has been a notable lack of discussion around the social, behavioural, and environmental implications. This book is the first to address these issues and to deeply consider the environmental and social sustainability outlook for the AV and how it will impact on communities. Environmental and social sustainability are goals unlike those of technical development (a new tool) and economic development (a new investment). The goal of sustainability is development of societies that live well and equitably within their ecological limits. Is it reasonable and desirable that only technical and economic success comprise the swelling AV parade, or should we be looking at the wider impacts on personal well-being, wider society, and the environment? The uptake for AVs looks to be lengthy, disjointed, and episodic, in large measure because it faces a range of known unknown risks. This book assesses the environmental and social sustainability potential for AVs based on their prospective energy use and their impacts on climate change, urban landscapes, public health, mobility inequalities, and individual and social well-being. It examines public attitudes about AV use and its risk of fostering a rebound effect that compromises potential sustainability gains. The book concludes with a discussion of critical issues involved in sustainable AV diffusion.

X-by-wire Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) have been attracting increased attention for various civilian or military applications. The x-by-wire techniques (drive-by-wire, steer-by-wire, and brake-by-wire techniques) provide the possibility of achieving novel vehicle design and advanced dynamics control, which can significantly improve the overall performance, maneuverability, and mobility of the UGVs. However, there are few full x-by-wire UGVs prototype models reported in the world. Therefore, there is no book that can fully describe the design, configuration, and dynamics control approach of full x-by-wire UGVs, which makes it difficult for readers to study this hot and interesting topic. In this book, we use a full x-by-wire UGV, developed by our group, as the example. This UGV is completely x-by-wire with four in-wheel motors driven and a four-wheel independent steer steer. In this book, the overall design of the UGV, the design of the key subsystems (battery pack system, in-wheel motor-driven system, independent steer system, remote and autonomous control system), and the dynamics control approach will be introduced in detail, and the experiment's results will be provided to validate the proposed dynamics control approach.

This book is the first technical overview of autonomous vehicles written for a general computing and engineering audience. The authors share their practical experiences of creating autonomous vehicle systems. These systems are complex, consisting of three major subsystems: (1) algorithms for localization, perception, and planning and control; (2) client systems, such as the robotics operating system and hardware platform; and (3) the cloud platform, which includes data storage, simulation, high-definition (HD) mapping, and deep learning model training. The algorithm subsystem extracts meaningful information from sensor raw data to understand its environment and make decisions about its actions. The client subsystem integrates these algorithms to meet real-time and reliability requirements. The cloud platform provides offline computing and storage capabilities for autonomous vehicles. Using the cloud platform, we are able to test new algorithms and update the HD map—plus, train better recognition, tracking, and decision models. This book consists of nine chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of autonomous vehicle systems; Chapter 2 focuses on localization technologies; Chapter 3 discusses traditional techniques used for perception; Chapter 4 discusses deep learning based techniques for perception; Chapter 5 introduces the planning and control sub-system, especially prediction and routing technologies; Chapter 6 focuses on motion planning and feedback control of the planning and control subsystem; Chapter 7 introduces reinforcement learning-based planning and control; Chapter 8 delves into the details of client systems design; and Chapter 9 provides the details of cloud platforms for autonomous driving. This book should be useful to students, researchers, and practitioners alike. Whether you are an undergraduate or a graduate student interested in autonomous driving, you will find herein a comprehensive overview of the whole autonomous vehicle technology stack. If you are an autonomous driving practitioner, the many practical techniques introduced in this book will be of interest to you. Researchers will also find plenty of references for an effective, deeper exploration of the various technologies.

The main topic of this book is the recent development of on-board advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), which we can already tell will eventually contribute to the autonomous and connected vehicles of tomorrow. With the development of automated mobility, it becomes necessary to design a series of modules which, from the data produced by on-board or remote information sources, will enable the construction of a completely automated driving system. These modules are perception, decision and action. State-of-the-art AI techniques and their potential applications in the field of autonomous vehicles are described. Perception systems, focusing on visual sensors, the decision module and the prototyping, testing and evaluation of ADAS systems are all presented for effective implementation on autonomous and connected vehicles. This book also addresses cooperative systems, such as pedestrian detection, as well as the legal issues in the use of autonomous vehicles in open environments.