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Analysis and Synthesis of Coordinated Control Systems for Automated Road Vehicles II

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "E: Electric Vehicles".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2023) | Viewed by 4767

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Institute for Computer Science and Control, 1111 Budapest, Hungary
Interests: automated and autonomous vehicle control systems; energy-optimal control of road vehicles; coordination of vehicle control systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Through the automation of road vehicles, several smart actuators have been developed with which various automated and autonomous functionalities can be performed. For example, the manoeuvring of a vehicle can be achieved through automated steering, torque vectoring, differential braking, and variable-geometry suspension. Despite the similarities in the functionalities, the operation capability and the cost aspects of each intervention can be different.

The goal of the Special Issue is to propose analysis and synthesis methods, with which safe and energy-optimal coordination strategies of automated vehicle control systems can be achieved. It poses various control-theoretical challenges, e.g., the handling of nonlinearities, the formulation of uncertainties, and the assessment of performance issues in automated systems. Nevertheless, the conventional reconfigurable, robust parameter-varying, and nonlinear methods provide a starting-point for finding solutions for the recent problems. Moreover, through the novel data-driven and learning-based approaches, promising results in the field of automated vehicle control have been achieved.

The coordination of vehicle control systems is incorporated in a high-level context, which goes beyond the problem of coordination at a vehicle level. The developed vehicle control solutions must guarantee its cooperation with human intervention, i.e., during the operation of partially automated systems, the intention and intervention capabilities of the driver must be considered. Furthermore, the integration of automated vehicles in an intelligent transportation system provides novel performance requirements at a vehicle level. Thus, the coordination of the vehicle control systems must be carried out so as to simultaneously improve the performances at a local and global level. The goal of the Special Issue is to provide new approaches in coordination considering the high-level context.

Dr. Balázs Németh
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • analysis of vehicle control interventions
  • performance issues in the design of coordination strategies
  • coordination for achieving fault-tolerant vehicle operation
  • actuator reconfiguration strategies for automated vehicles
  • nonlinear and learning-based methods for coordinated control design
  • coordination of human interventions and automated control
  • integration of vehicle control and intelligent transportation systems

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 1260 KiB  
Article
Integrated Control of Motion Actuators for Enhancing Path Following and Yaw Stability of Over-Actuated Autonomous Vehicles
by Wenliang Zhang, Lars Drugge, Mikael Nybacka and Jenny Jerrelind
Energies 2023, 16(12), 4776; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16124776 - 17 Jun 2023
Viewed by 847
Abstract
Advanced active safety systems play a crucial role in ensuring the safe driving of vehicles in critical conditions such as an obstacle avoidance manoeuvre. However, conventional techniques relying mainly on braking interventions may not result in the desired vehicle response in such situations. [...] Read more.
Advanced active safety systems play a crucial role in ensuring the safe driving of vehicles in critical conditions such as an obstacle avoidance manoeuvre. However, conventional techniques relying mainly on braking interventions may not result in the desired vehicle response in such situations. Over-actuation through the control of individual motion actuators could potentially improve the safety performance of vehicles. This study evaluates various configurations of motion actuators for path following and yaw stability control of vehicles in critical driving scenarios. The configurations include active front steering (S), active front steering + torque vectoring (ST), active front steering + active camber (SC) and active front steering + torque vectoring + active camber (STC). The evaluation is achieved based on a nonlinear model predictive control formulation, which considers yaw stability and the physical limits of motion actuators. This problem formulation uses a double-track vehicle model, combined with the Dugoff tyre model and its variant with the camber effect, to model the vehicle dynamics. The actuator configurations are evaluated regarding the passing velocity, tracking accuracy, safety distance and robustness to reference trajectory variation. The results indicate that the integrated control of STC performs the best among all the four configurations while S performs the worst. Furthermore, SC is generally superior to ST. Full article
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22 pages, 878 KiB  
Article
Coordinated Control Design for Ethical Maneuvering of Autonomous Vehicles
by Balázs Németh
Energies 2023, 16(10), 4254; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16104254 - 22 May 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1859
Abstract
This paper proposes a coordinated control design method, with which the autonomous vehicle is able to perform ethical maneuvers. The starting point of the provided method is a thorough analysis on the ethical concepts for autonomous vehicle control design methods. Using the results [...] Read more.
This paper proposes a coordinated control design method, with which the autonomous vehicle is able to perform ethical maneuvers. The starting point of the provided method is a thorough analysis on the ethical concepts for autonomous vehicle control design methods. Using the results of the analysis, an own concept is provided based on some principles of Protestant ethics. The concept focuses on improving trust in vehicle control through clear rules and predictable vehicle motion, and it is in line with the state-of-the-art ethical vehicle control methods. Moreover, an optimal Model Predictive Control (MPC) design method is formed, in which the provided ethical concept is incorporated. The outputs of the optimal control are steering angle and velocity profile, with which the ethical maneuvering can be achieved. The contribution of the paper is a coordinated control design method, which is able to involve ethical principles. Moreover, the application of Protestant ethics in this context is also a novel achievement in the paper. The effectiveness of the method through different simulation scenarios is illustrated. Full article
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20 pages, 6201 KiB  
Article
Design and Comparative Analysis of Several Model Predictive Control Strategies for Autonomous Vehicle Approaching a Traffic Light Crossing
by Ivan Cvok, Lea Pavelko, Branimir Škugor, Joško Deur, H. Eric Tseng and Vladimir Ivanovic
Energies 2023, 16(4), 2006; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16042006 - 17 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1603
Abstract
Recent advancements in automated driving technology and vehicle connectivity are associated with the development of advanced predictive control systems for improved performance, energy efficiency, safety, and comfort. This paper designs and compares different linear and nonlinear model predictive control strategies for a typical [...] Read more.
Recent advancements in automated driving technology and vehicle connectivity are associated with the development of advanced predictive control systems for improved performance, energy efficiency, safety, and comfort. This paper designs and compares different linear and nonlinear model predictive control strategies for a typical scenario of urban driving, in which the vehicle is approaching a traffic light crossing. In the linear model predictive control (MPC) case, the vehicle acceleration is optimized at every time instant on a prediction horizon to minimize the root-mean-square error of velocity tracking and RMS acceleration as a comfort metric, thus resulting in a quadratic program (QP). To tackle the vehicle-distance-related traffic light constraint, a linear time-varying MPC approach is used. The nonlinear MPC formulation is based on the first-order lag description of the vehicle velocity profile on the prediction horizon, where only two parameters are optimized: the time constant and the target velocity. To improve the computational efficiency of the nonlinear MPC formulation, multiple linear MPCs, i.e., a parallel MPC, are designed for different fixed-lag time constants, which can efficiently be solved by fast QP solvers. The performance of the three MPC approaches is compared in terms of vehicle velocity tracking error, root-mean-square acceleration, traveled distance, and computational time. The proposed control systems can readily be implemented in future automated driving systems, as well as within advanced driver assist systems such as adaptive cruise control or automated emergency braking systems. Full article
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