The security of Automated Vehicles (AVs) is an important emerging area of research in traffic safety. Methods have been published and evaluated in experimental vehicles to secure safe AV control in the presence of attacks, but human motion comfort is rarely investigated in such studies. In this paper, we present an innovative optimal-coupling-observer-based framework that rejects the impact of bounded sensor attacks in a network of connected and automated vehicles from safety and comfort point of view. We demonstrate its performance in car following with cooperative adaptive cruise control for platoons with redundant distance and velocity sensors. The error dynamics are formulated as a Linear Time Variant (LTV) system, resulting in complex stability conditions that are investigated using a Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) approach guaranteeing global asymptotic stability. We prove the capability of the framework to secure occupants’ safety and comfort in the presence of bounded attacks. In the onset of attack, the framework rapidly detects attacked sensors and switches to the most reliable observer eliminating attacked sensors, even with modest attack magnitudes. Without our proposed method, severe (but bounded) attacks result in collisions and major discomfort. With our method, attacks had negligible effects on motion comfort evaluated using ISO-2631 Ride Comfort and Motion Sickness indexes. The results pave the path to bring comfort to the forefront of AVs security.

We present a vehicle system capable of navigating safely and efficiently around Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), such as pedestrians and cyclists. The system comprises key modules for environment perception, localization and mapping, motion planning, and control, integrated into a prototype vehicle. A key innovation is a motion planner based on Topology-driven Model Predictive Control (T-MPC). The guidance layer generates multiple trajectories in parallel, each representing a distinct strategy for obstacle avoidance or non-passing. The underlying trajectory optimization constrains the joint probability of collision with VRUs under generic uncertainties. To address extraordinary situations (“edge cases”) that go beyond the autonomous capabilities — such as construction zones or encounters with emergency responders — the system includes an option for remote human operation, supported by visual and haptic guidance. In simulation, our motion planner outperforms three baseline approaches in terms of safety and efficiency. We also demonstrate the full system in prototype vehicle tests on a closed track, both in autonomous and remotely operated modes.

Preserving features or local shape characteristics of a mesh using conventional non-rigid registration methods is always difficult, as the preservation and deformation are competing with each other. The challenge is to find a balance between these two terms in the process of the registration, especially in presence of artefacts in the mesh. We present a non-rigid Iterative Closest Points (ICP) algorithm which addresses the challenge as a control problem. An adaptive feedback control scheme with global asymptotic stability is derived to control the stiffness ratio for maximum feature preservation and minimum mesh quality loss during the registration process. A cost function is formulated with the distance term and the stiffness term where the initial stiffness ratio value is defined by an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS)-based predictor regarding the source mesh and the target mesh topology, and the distance between the correspondences. During the registration process, the stiffness ratio of each vertex is continuously adjusted by the intrinsic information, represented by shape descriptors, of the surrounding surface as well as the steps in the registration process. Besides, the estimated process-dependent stiffness ratios are used as dynamic weights for establishing the correspondences in each step of the registration. Experiments on simple geometric shapes as well as 3D scanning datasets indicated that the proposed approach outperforms current methodologies, especially for the regions where features are not eminent and/or there exist interferences between/among features, due to its ability to embed the inherent properties of the surface in the process of the mesh registration.

This paper deals with traffic control at motorway bottlenecks assuming the existence of an unknown, time-varying, Fundamental Diagram (FD). The FD may change over time due to different traffic compositions, e.g., light and heavy vehicles, as well as in the presence of connected and automated vehicles equipped with different technologies at varying penetration rates, leading to inconstant and uncertain driving characteristics. A novel methodology, based on Model Reference Adaptive Control, is proposed to robustly estimate in real-time the time-varying set-points that maximise the bottleneck throughput, particularly useful when the traffic is regulated via a feedback-based controller. Furthermore, we demonstrate the global asymptotic stability of the proposed controller through a novel Lyapunov analysis. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is evaluated via simulation experiments, where the estimator is integrated into a feedback ramp-metering control strategy, employing a second-order multi-lane macroscopic traffic flow model, modified to account for time-varying FDs.

Preserving features of a surface as characteristic local shape properties captured e.g. by curvature, during non-rigid registration is always difficult where finding meaningful correspondences, assuring the robustness and the convergence of the algorithm while maintaining the quality of mesh are often challenges due to the high degrees of freedom and the sensitivity to features of the source surface. In this paper, we present a non-rigid registration method utilizing a newly defined semi-curvature, which is inspired by the definition of the Gaussian curvature. In the procedure of establishing the correspondences, for each point on the source surface, a corresponding point on the target surface is selected using a dynamic weighted criterion defined on the distance and the semi-curvature. We reformulate the cost function as a combination of the semi-curvature, the stiffness, and the distance terms, and ensure to penalize errors of both the distance and the semi-curvature terms in a guaranteed stable region. For a robust and efficient optimization process, we linearize the semi-curvature term, where the region of attraction is defined and the stability of the approach is proven. Experimental results show that features of the local areas on the original surface with higher curvature values are better preserved in comparison with the conventional methods. In comparison with the other methods, this leads to, on average, 75%, 8% and 82% improvement in terms of quality of correspondences selection, quality of surface after registration, and time spent of the convergence process respectively, mainly due to that the semi-curvature term logically increases the constraints and dependency of each point on the neighboring vertices based on the point's degree of curvature.

Aiming at operating effectively future traffic systems, we propose here a novel methodology for integrated lane-changing and ramp metering control that exploits the presence of connected vehicles. In particular, we assume that a percentage of vehicles can receive and implement specific control tasks (e.g., lane-changing commands), while ramp metering is available via an infrastructure-based system or enabled by connected vehicles. The proposed approach is designed to robustly maximise the throughput at motorway bottlenecks employing a feedback controller, formulated as a Linear Quadratic Integral regulator, which is based on a simplified linear time invariant traffic flow model. We also present an extremum seeking algorithm to compute the optimal set-points used in the feedback controller, employing only the measurement of a cost that is representative of the achieved traffic conditions. The method is evaluated via simulation experiments, performed on a first-order, multi-lane, macroscopic traffic flow model, also featuring the capacity drop phenomenon, which allows to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed methodology and to highlight the improvement in terms of the generated congestion.

In the presence of complicated kinematic and dynamic, we present a generalizable robust control technique for the 6-Degree of Freedom (6DoF) Stewart integrated platform with revolving, time-delayed torque control actuators to achieve faster, and reliable efficiency for parallel control manipulators. The suggested optimal solution involves the construction of a time-delay Linear Quadratic Integral (LQI) controller integrated with an on-line Artificial Neural Network (ANN) as the cost function gain tuner. The controller is formulated to robustly mitigate the nonlinear system’s real-time tracking error with large time-delay, which is implemented via ADAMS software. The method is validated through simulation experiments to demonstrate that the developed methodology is practical, optimum, and zero-error convergence.