scholarly journals Emerging Inter-Swarm Collaboration for Surveillance Using Pheromones and Evolutionary Techniques

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 2566
Author(s):  
Daniel H. Stolfi ◽  
Matthias R. Brust ◽  
Grégoire Danoy ◽  
Pascal Bouvry
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Systems ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Water Surface ◽  
Mobility Model ◽  
Collaborative Approach ◽  
Ground Vehicles ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Covered Area ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles

In this article, we propose a new mobility model, called Attractor Based Inter-Swarm collaborationS (ABISS), for improving the surveillance of restricted areas performed by unmanned autonomous vehicles. This approach uses different types of vehicles which explore an area of interest following unpredictable trajectories based on chaotic solutions of dynamic systems. Collaborations between vehicles are meant to cover some regions of the area which are unreachable by members of one swarm, e.g., unmanned ground vehicles on water surface, by using members of another swarm, e.g., unmanned aerial vehicles. Experimental results demonstrate that collaboration is not only possible but also emerges as part of the configurations calculated by a specially designed and parameterised evolutionary algorithm. Experiments were conducted on 12 different case studies including 30 scenarios each, observing an improvement in the total covered area up to 11%, when comparing ABISS with a non-collaborative approach.

The Impact of Mental States on Semi-autonomous Driving Takeover Performance: A Systematic Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 1372-1376
Author(s):  
Gaojian Huang ◽  
Christine Petersen ◽  
Brandon J. Pitts
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Autonomous Driving ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Manual Control ◽  
Monitoring Systems ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact

Semi-autonomous vehicles still require drivers to occasionally resume manual control. However, drivers of these vehicles may have different mental states. For example, drivers may be engaged in non-driving related tasks or may exhibit mind wandering behavior. Also, monitoring monotonous driving environments can result in passive fatigue. Given the potential for different types of mental states to negatively affect takeover performance, it will be critical to highlight how mental states affect semi-autonomous takeover. A systematic review was conducted to synthesize the literature on mental states (such as distraction, fatigue, emotion) and takeover performance. This review focuses specifically on five fatigue studies. Overall, studies were too few to observe consistent findings, but some suggest that response times to takeover alerts and post-takeover performance may be affected by fatigue. Ultimately, this review may help researchers improve and develop real-time mental states monitoring systems for a wide range of application domains.

scholarly journals Driver seat comfort for level 3-4 autonomous vehicles

Work ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (s1) ◽  
pp. S111-S118
Author(s):  
Neil J. Mansfield ◽  
Kartikeya Walia ◽  
Aditya Singh
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Driving Simulator ◽  
Case Methods ◽  
Driving Mode ◽  
Full Control ◽  
Seat Comfort ◽  
Autonomous Mode ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Level 3 ◽  
Level 2

BACKGROUND: Autonomous vehicles can be classified on a scale of automation from 0 to 5, where level 0 corresponds to vehicles that have no automation to level 5 where the vehicle is fully autonomous and it is not possible for the human occupant to take control. At level 2, the driver needs to retain attention as they are in control of at least some systems. Level 3-4 vehicles are capable of full control but the human occupant might be required to, or desire to, intervene in some circumstances. This means that there could be extended periods of time where the driver is relaxed, but other periods of time when they need to drive. OBJECTIVE: The seat must therefore be designed to be comfortable in at least two different types of use case. METHODS: This driving simulator study compares the comfort experienced in a seat from a production hybrid vehicle whilst being used in a manual driving mode and in autonomous mode for a range of postures. RESULTS: It highlights how discomfort is worse for cases where the posture is non-optimal for the task. It also investigates the design of head and neckrests to mitigate neck discomfort, and shows that a well-designed neckrest is beneficial for drivers in autonomous mode.

scholarly journals Collision Avoidance on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using Neural Network Pipelines and Flow Clustering Techniques

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 2643
Author(s):  
Dário Pedro ◽  
João P. Matos-Carvalho ◽  
José M. Fonseca ◽  
André Mora
Keyword(s):  
Collision Avoidance ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
High Demand ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Vision Sensors ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Stationary Objects ◽  
Computationally Intensive ◽  
Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Positive Results

Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAV), while not a recent invention, have recently acquired a prominent position in many industries, and they are increasingly used not only by avid customers, but also in high-demand technical use-cases, and will have a significant societal effect in the coming years. However, the use of UAVs is fraught with significant safety threats, such as collisions with dynamic obstacles (other UAVs, birds, or randomly thrown objects). This research focuses on a safety problem that is often overlooked due to a lack of technology and solutions to address it: collisions with non-stationary objects. A novel approach is described that employs deep learning techniques to solve the computationally intensive problem of real-time collision avoidance with dynamic objects using off-the-shelf commercial vision sensors. The suggested approach’s viability was corroborated by multiple experiments, firstly in simulation, and afterward in a concrete real-world case, that consists of dodging a thrown ball. A novel video dataset was created and made available for this purpose, and transfer learning was also tested, with positive results.

Reliability-Based Mission Planning of Off-Road Autonomous Ground Vehicles Using an Outcrossing Approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Jiang ◽  
Yixuan Liu ◽  
Zhen Hu ◽  
Zissimos P. Mourelatos ◽  
David Gorsich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Path Planning ◽  
Optimal Path ◽  
Gaussian Random Field ◽  
Mobility Model ◽  
Outcrossing Rate ◽  
Mission Planning ◽  
Ground Vehicles ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Autonomous Ground Vehicles ◽  
Uncertainty Sources

Abstract Reliability-based mission planning aims to identify an optimal path for off-road autonomous ground vehicles (AGVs) under uncertain terrain environment, while satisfying specific mission mobility reliability (MMR) constraints. The evaluation of MMR during path planning poses computational challenges for practical applications. This paper presents an efficient reliability-based mission planning using an outcrossing approach that has the same computational complexity as deterministic mission planning. A Gaussian random field is employed to represent the spatially dependent uncertainty sources in the terrain environment. The latter are then used in conjunction with a vehicle mobility model to generate a stochastic mobility map. Based on the stochastic mobility map, outcrossing rate maps are generated using the outcrossing concept which is widely used in time-dependent reliability. Integration of the outcrossing rate map with a rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT*) algorithm, allows for efficient path planning of AGVs subject to MMR constraints. A reliable RRT* algorithm using the outcrossing approach (RRT*-OC) is developed to implement the proposed efficient reliability-based mission planning. Results of a case study verify the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

Ground Transport for an Air Organisation

1928 ◽  
Vol 32 (211) ◽  
pp. 596-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. H. Allen
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Similar Magnitude ◽  
Ground Vehicles ◽  
Royal Air Force ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Aerial Transport ◽  
Different Parts

Probably few realise that a self–contained organisation for maintaining an air fleet would need many more different types of ground vehicles than aircraft. This is true in the case of the Royal Air Force even if all vehicles of a purely military nature are excluded. It is highly probable that a civilian air organisation of similar magnitude would have fewer types of aircraft, but if it were to be self–contained and operate in different parts of the globe, it could not do with many less types of ground vehicles than the R.A.F. finds necessary.Obviously this depends on the interpretation of the term “self–contained.” Most of the small aerial transport companies have their own ground transport organisations, but they are far from being self–contained in the sense in which the author wishes to use the term to–night. We would all like to see a vast civilian air organisation operating in and between all the different units which comprise the British Empire. Nothing would do more to knit us and the Dominions and Colonies into one impregnable whole.

scholarly journals Robust Wireless Sensor Network Deployment

2016 ◽  
Vol Vol. 17 no. 3 (Distributed Computing and...) ◽  
Author(s):  
Milan Erdelj ◽  
Nathalie Mitton ◽  
Tahiry Razafindralambo
Keyword(s):  
Hexagonal Lattice ◽  
Mobile Sensors ◽  
Sensor Failures ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Covered Area ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Available Information ◽  
Connectivity Maintenance ◽  
Wireless Mobile

International audience In this work we present a decentralized deployment algorithm for wireless mobile sensor networks focused on deployment Efficiency, connectivity Maintenance and network Reparation (EMR). We assume that a group of mobile sensors is placed in the area of interest to be covered, without any prior knowledge of the environment. The goal of the algorithm is to maximize the covered area and cope with sudden sensor failures. By relying on the locally available information regarding the environment and neighborhood, and without the need for any kind of synchronization in the network, each sensor iteratively chooses the next-step movement location so as to form a hexagonal lattice grid. Relying on the graph of wireless mobile sensors, we are able to provide the properties regarding the quality of coverage, the connectivity of the graph and the termination of the algorithm. We run extensive simulations to provide compactness properties of the deployment and evaluate the robustness against sensor failures. We show through the analysis and the simulations that EMR algorithm is robust to node failures and can restore the lattice grid. We also show that even after a failure, EMR algorithm call still provide a compact deployment in a reasonable time.

scholarly journals 4DVAR HF radar assimilation South of Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Couvelard ◽  
Christophe Messager ◽  
Pierrick Penven ◽  
Phillipe Lattes
Keyword(s):  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
Surface Current ◽  
Hf Radar ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Oceanic Circulation ◽  
Geostrophic Currents ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Covered Area ◽  
The One ◽  
Gas Fields

Abstract The oceanic circulation south of Africa is characterized by a complex dynamics with a strong variability due to the presence of the Agulhas current and numerous eddies. The area of interest of this paper, is also the location of several natural gas fields under seafloor which are targeted for drilling and exploitation.The complex and powerful ocean currents induce significant issues for ship operations at the surface as well as under the surface for deep sea operations. Therefore, the knowledge of the state of the currents and the ability to forecast them in a realistic manner could greatly enforce the safety of various marine operation. Following this objective an array of HF radar systems was deployed to allow a detailed knowledge of the Agulhas currents and its associated eddy activity. It is shown in this study that 4DVAR assimilation of HF radar allow to represent the surface circulation more realistically. Two kind of experiments have been performed, a one-month analysis and two days forecast. The one-month 4DVAR experiment have been compared to geostrophic currents issued from altimeters and highlight an important improvement of the geostrophic currents. Furthermore, despite the restricted size of the area covered with HF radar, we show that the solution is improved almost in the whole domain, mainly upstream and downstream of the HF radar's covered area. We also show that while benefits of the assimilation on the surface current intensity is significantly reduced in the first 6 hours of the forecast, the correction in direction persists after 48 hours.

scholarly journals An Efficient Multi-Vehicle Routing Strategy for Goods Delivery Services

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linh Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Optimization Problem ◽  
Transportation Cost ◽  
Mixed Integer ◽  
Optimal Routing ◽  
Ground Vehicles ◽  
Routing Optimization ◽  
Routing Strategy ◽  
Delivery Services ◽  
Delivery Vehicles

<pre>The paper addresses the problem of efficiently planning routes for multiple ground vehicles used in goods delivery services. Given popularity of today's e-commerce, particularly under the COVID-19 pandemic conditions, goods delivery services have been booming than ever, dominated by small-scaled (electric) bikes and promised by autonomous vehicles. However, finding optimal routing paths for multiple delivery vehicles operating simultaneously in order to minimize transportation cost is a fundamental but challenging problem. In this paper, it is first proposed to exploit the mixed integer programming paradigm to model the delivery routing optimization problem (DROP) for multiple simultaneously-operating vehicles given their energy constraints. The routing optimization problem is then solved by the multi-chromosome genetic algorithm, where the number of delivery vehicles can be optimized. The proposed approach was evaluated in a real-world experiment in which goods were expected to be delivered from a depot to 26 suburb locations in Canberra, Australia. The obtained results demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.</pre>

scholarly journals LISMA_HDS language for modeling heterogeneous dynamic systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 103-122
Author(s):  
Evgeny Popov ◽  
◽  
Yury Shornikov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Systems ◽  
Initial Value Problems ◽  
Method Of Lines ◽  
System Of Equations ◽  
Modeling Languages ◽  
Cauchy Problems ◽  
Systems Of Equations ◽  
Initial Value ◽  
Algebraic Systems ◽  
Different Types

Heterogeneous dynamic systems (HDS) simultaneously describe processes of different physical nature. Systems of this kind are typical for numerous applications. HDSs are characterized by the following features. They are often multimode or hybrid systems. In general, their modes are defined as initial value problems (Cauchy problems) for implicit differential-algebraic systems of equations. Due to the presence of heterogeneous dynamic components or processes evolving in both time and space, the dimension of the complete system of equations may be pretty high. In some cases, the system of equations has an internal structure, for instance, the differential-algebraic system of equations approximating a partial differential equation by the method of lines. An original huge system of equations can then be algorithmically rewritten in a compact form. Moreover, heterogeneous hybrid dynamical systems can generate events of qualitatively different types. Therefore one has to use different numerical event detection algorithms. Nowadays, HDSs are modeled and simulated in computer environments. The modeling languages widely used by engineers do not allow them to fully specify all the properties of the systems of this class. For instance, they do not include event typing constructs. That is why a declarative general-purpose modeling language named LISMA_HDS has been developed for the computer-aided modeling and ISMA simulation environment. The language takes into account all of the characteristic features of HDSs. It includes constructs for plain or algorithmic declaration of model constants, initial value problems for explicit differential-algebraic systems of equations, and initial guesses for variables. It also allows researchers to define explicit time events, modes and transitions between them upon the occurrence of events of different types, to use macros and implement event control. LISMA_HDS is defined by a generative grammar in an extended Backus-Naur form and semantic constraints. It is proved that the grammar belongs to the LL(2) subclass of context-free grammars.

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