Advanced Transportation Systems
Abstract:
Advanced autonomous transportation technologies must become robust, affordable and maintainable before safe and wide public adoption. The following research challenges of cyber-physical systems must be overcome before autonomous vehicles become practical:
- Endogenous challenges that address the cyber-physical challenges inside the automobile to ensure the timely, safe and reliable operations of sensors, actuators, processors, communication networks, when any could fail at any time, with graceful degradation modes,
- Exogenous challenges dealing with wide-ranging physical conditions and uncertainties external to the automobile including pedestrians, bicyclists, motor-bikes, night/dusk/dawn lighting, snow/rainy/dusty conditions, smooth/icy/unpaved roads, highway speeds, road closures, detours and accidents,
- Cooperation challenges enabling real-time communications to/from the automobile using vehicle-to- vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) networks to coordinate behaviors with other vehicles and to obtain/react to information about traffic/accident conditions, traffic light and signs, and
- Verification challenges creating verification and validation technologies, modeling techniques and tools to validate the correctness and robustness of integrated automotive CPS behaviors.
Our project seeks to make important research contributions in the domains of safety-critical real-time fault-tolerant distributed cyber-physical platforms, end-to-end resource management, cooperative vehicular networks, cyber-physical system modeling and analysis tools, dynamic object detection/recognition, real-time perception and planning algorithms under uncertainty and adverse weather conditions, hybrid systems verification, and safe dynamic behaviors under constantly changing operating conditions. In the interim, multiple capabilities in the form of active safety features will also be enabled.
Societal and Economic Benefits
Accidents related to automobiles result in about 32,000 fatalities and 3 million injuries every year in the United States. About 1.2 million automobile fatalities occur across the globe annually. The global annual cost of road injuries in medical care, disability and property damage is $518 billion. In fact, road traffic injuries represent the leading cause of death worldwide for people ages 10 to 24. Many accidents are due to humans being distracted, unfocused, upset, angry, sad, moody, physically or visually impaired, tired, drowsy or even drunk. They can also under-estimate the severity of adverse weather and road conditions. Fully autonomous or even near-autonomous vehicles controlled by ever-vigilant cyber-physical systems can lead over time to significant declines in accidents, and resulting deaths/injuries. In terms of time wasted, the average US driver spends a week stuck in traffic per year. In the European Union alone, 80 billion € are estimated to be wasted per year due to traffic congestion. Autonomous vehicles over time can offload many driving chores from humans, and make time spent in congestion and just commuting more productive. As the US population ages, the reaction rates of its senior citizens will slow down, and having actively controlled vehicles will enhance their independence when they cannot drive anymore. Physically or visually challenged citizens will also benefit from these options.
Submitted by Ragunathan Rajkumar
on
Abstract:
Advanced autonomous transportation technologies must become robust, affordable and maintainable before safe and wide public adoption. The following research challenges of cyber-physical systems must be overcome before autonomous vehicles become practical:
- Endogenous challenges that address the cyber-physical challenges inside the automobile to ensure the timely, safe and reliable operations of sensors, actuators, processors, communication networks, when any could fail at any time, with graceful degradation modes,
- Exogenous challenges dealing with wide-ranging physical conditions and uncertainties external to the automobile including pedestrians, bicyclists, motor-bikes, night/dusk/dawn lighting, snow/rainy/dusty conditions, smooth/icy/unpaved roads, highway speeds, road closures, detours and accidents,
- Cooperation challenges enabling real-time communications to/from the automobile using vehicle-to- vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) networks to coordinate behaviors with other vehicles and to obtain/react to information about traffic/accident conditions, traffic light and signs, and
- Verification challenges creating verification and validation technologies, modeling techniques and tools to validate the correctness and robustness of integrated automotive CPS behaviors.
Our project seeks to make important research contributions in the domains of safety-critical real-time fault-tolerant distributed cyber-physical platforms, end-to-end resource management, cooperative vehicular networks, cyber-physical system modeling and analysis tools, dynamic object detection/recognition, real-time perception and planning algorithms under uncertainty and adverse weather conditions, hybrid systems verification, and safe dynamic behaviors under constantly changing operating conditions. In the interim, multiple capabilities in the form of active safety features will also be enabled.
Societal and Economic Benefits
Accidents related to automobiles result in about 32,000 fatalities and 3 million injuries every year in the United States. About 1.2 million automobile fatalities occur across the globe annually. The global annual cost of road injuries in medical care, disability and property damage is $518 billion. In fact, road traffic injuries represent the leading cause of death worldwide for people ages 10 to 24. Many accidents are due to humans being distracted, unfocused, upset, angry, sad, moody, physically or visually impaired, tired, drowsy or even drunk. They can also under-estimate the severity of adverse weather and road conditions. Fully autonomous or even near-autonomous vehicles controlled by ever-vigilant cyber-physical systems can lead over time to significant declines in accidents, and resulting deaths/injuries. In terms of time wasted, the average US driver spends a week stuck in traffic per year. In the European Union alone, 80 billion € are estimated to be wasted per year due to traffic congestion. Autonomous vehicles over time can offload many driving chores from humans, and make time spent in congestion and just commuting more productive. As the US population ages, the reaction rates of its senior citizens will slow down, and having actively controlled vehicles will enhance their independence when they cannot drive anymore. Physically or visually challenged citizens will also benefit from these options.