Intelligent Vehicles

Enabling Technologies and Future Developments

Felipe Jiménez

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780128131084
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Automotive Transportation & Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Intelligent Road Vehicles examines specific aspects of intelligent vehicles such as enabling technologies, human factors and an analysis of social and economic impacts. The book is an invaluable resource for those pursuing deeper knowledge in the intelligent vehicles field, providing readers with an idea of current and future technologies, current projects and developments and the future of intelligent vehicles.

Intelligent road vehicles are becoming a challenging area of research worldwide. Apart from the final applications and systems in vehicles, there are many enabling technologies that should be introduced. Communications and automation are two key areas for future automobiles. This book benefits from collaboration on the Thematic Network on Intelligent Vehicles led by Felipe Jimenez.

• Provides a general overview of different aspects related to intelligent road vehicles (sensors, applications, communications, automation, human factors, etc.)
• Addresses the different components and building blocks of intelligent vehicles in a single, comprehensive reference
• Explains how sensors are interpreted, including how different sensor readings are fused
• Addresses issues involved with avoiding collisions and other factors such as pot holes, unclear road lines or markings, and unexpected weather conditions

Chapter 1

Introduction

Felipe Jiménez, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Abstract

Intelligent Transport Systems—understood as the systems that apply the technologies of Electronics, Automatic Control, Computer, and Communications to the field of transport, to aim at the reduction of accidents, energy savings, pollution reduction, and the increased efficiency of the transport system as a whole—can be studied in a very broad way. An intelligent vehicle could be defined as a vehicle that is capable of taking information about its state and/or the environment, processing that information, and making decisions, providing information, and/or acting. These kinds of vehicles include high performance technology such as onboard sensors, positioning the vehicle on a digital map, monitoring of the near environment using onboard sensors, reception of distant information through wireless communications, and monitoring of the driver and the interior of the vehicle. All of them are nowadays active research lines.

Keywords

Intelligent transport systems; intelligent vehicles; sensors; monitoring; communications; telematics; research lines

Contents

1.1 Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) 1

1.2 Early Initiatives 4

1.2.1 Europe 4

1.2.2 United States 5

1.2.3 Japan 7

1.3 Services 7

1.3.1 Provision of Information to the User 8

1.3.2 Traffic Management 9

1.3.3 Freight Transportation Operation 10

1.3.4 Public Transport Operation 12

1.3.5 Electronic Payment 14

1.3.6 Emergencies 15

1.4 Intelligent Vehicles 15

1.5 Book Structure 17

References 20

Further Reading 20

1.1 Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)

Transport has a clear link with economic development. However, the great growth of mobility in recent years, and above all, the preponderance of the mode of road transport over the others, has some associated negative effects in different areas: congestion, pollution, and accidents, mainly. In particular, in the European area:

• Approximately 10% of the road network is affected by daily congestion.

• Transport is the sector that has grown most in energy demand in all sectors, 83% of which corresponds to road transport, which in turn has a direct relationship with CO₂ emissions.

• Vehicles are the main source of pollution in cities and 20% of cities suffer unacceptable levels of noise.

• Every year, in the European Union, there are around 4000 deaths and 1.7 million injured in traffic accidents.

• In economic terms, the effects of congestion represent 0.5% of GDP, the environmental impact represents 0.6%, and accidents represent 1.5%.

On the other hand, these negative effects can be expected to continue to rise because of the growth in demand associated with development itself. Given the magnitude of the problems, Governments have set specific targets, such as the reduction of road deaths or the reduction of pollutant emissions, through increasingly restrictive regulations. With regard to congestion, the construction of new infrastructures provides a temporary response, but not enough to achieve transport sustainability. Instead, a policy based on better capacity management offers greater long-term benefits.

The technological and social evolution has led to demands for transport, safety, comfort, reliability, performance, efficiency, etc., that have grown exponentially in recent years. In addition to this pressure, regulatory requirements must be added, as well as the requirements for competitiveness in a global market, where there is a need for constant improvement and renewal, continually adding value to the products and services offered.

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), understood as the systems that apply the technologies of Electronics, Automatic Control, Computer, and Communications to the field of transport, are aimed at the reduction of accidents, energy savings, pollution reduction, and the increased efficiency of the transport system as a whole, and can be studied in a very broad way. Thus, it can be extended to all modes of transport and all their elements can be considered: vehicle, infrastructure, and user.

Although ITS may be associated with recent developments in the 21st century, it is not entirely true. Specifically, their beginnings came from the 1980s, with more or less simultaneous initiatives in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Already in those years strategic visions were presented as to how road transport should be taking into account the major problems detected in this mode of transport. This vision already considered the flows of information between all the actors present on the roads, their handling, and their diffusion. However, in those years it was not possible to have a clear vision on the specific technologies that could provide a viable and effective practical deployment. These were later developments both within the field of transport and, above all, outside it, which marked the route to deploying the vision raised years ago.

The concept behind ITS is the use of new technologies in the world of road transport infrastructures and vehicles, in order to reduce the major problems of this mode of transport (accidents, pollution, congestion, etc.) through different solutions to the conventional ones. The acquisition, classification, processing, and use of information are the key elements in intelligent systems and this flow of information, with its positive aspects and its difficulties, gives them a competitive advantage over conventional solutions.

Thus, from a technical point of view, intelligent transport systems can be understood as a chain of information, which includes the acquisition, communication, processing, exchange, distribution, and finally the use of this information. Thus, the following elements related to information flows can be defined, among others:

• Information captured by onboard sensors

• Intravehicular communications (communication buses)

• Vehicles positioning, based primarily on satellite location, but also beacon and other technologies have been developed

• Communication between vehicles (V2V)

• Infrastructure bidirectional communications (V2I)

• Centralized units of information: traffic management, fleet management, emergency systems, etc.

• Communications with such units that receive infrastructure or “floating vehicles” information

• Information provided to transport users (users of public transport, goods tracking, pre-trip information, etc.), fixed or variable, offered at specific points (variable panels on the roads or bus stops, for example) or in the vehicle itself or to the user directly.

It is worth mentioning the aspect of the generic name that these systems are called. The character of “intelligent” must be used with caution for a system that has been devised and materialized by human beings and that, at least at the moment, has little capacity to replace them. Moreover, as the years pass, systems that originally were considered highly “intelligent,” are treated in a much more conventional way now we are used to them, while other new systems and services are the ones that now make up the group of intelligent systems.

Finally, it should be noted that the implementation of ITS services, in addition to the technological problems involved, presents difficulties of a social (acceptance), political, and legal nature. Its introduction implies profound cultural changes, among which we can mention the creation of multidisciplinary groups, higher levels of cooperation between companies and administrations, integration of vehicles and infrastructure, etc. In addition, cooperation between the public and private sectors in transport is identified as essential. Thus, it is essential that, from the Governments’ (and, sometimes, broader) point of view, the appropriate framework for the development of these services be established.

1.2 Early Initiatives

Vehicles have undergone a spectacular evolution. It has not been simply an esthetic change, but has been a continuous technological progression. New control systems are increasingly being introduced to improve comfort and safety, firstly in expensive vehicles and, later, by generalizing to the most economical ranges. This flow of information in the control systems motivated the introduction of internal communication buses in vehicles, but the demands of the speed of communication and the volumes of information have led to the incorporation of more than one bus in vehicles at present.

The same situation happens for infrastructures. Several differences can be found between roads of decades ago and the current high capacity roads equipped with sensors, variable information panels, cameras, etc. The advances are not so evident on conventional roads (which has its reflection in the high number accidents of these roads). The progress in urban areas has also been remarkable (although often not as visible as in the case of vehicles or high capacity roads), but it must be taken into account that traffic management (in its most basic versions) has been present for many years, even before ITS systems were a reality or even a project.

As indicated above, it was in the 1980s that the need for major changes in road transport began to be raised by large administrations in Europe, the United States, and Japan, in order to face problems that were becoming increasingly unsustainable, and it was recognized that there was a need to address problems from different perspectives than usual, including the ITS approach. The ideas of the first initiatives are briefly presented below.

1.2.1 Europe

This concern was materialized in Europe in the Prometheus project (Program for a European Traffic System with Highest Efficiency and Unprecedented Safety) between 1987 and 1995. It emerged from the vision of “Creating Intelligent Vehicles as part of an Intelligent Road Traffic System.” It was a large project, involving autonomous vehicles and communications, and many other areas. Its objective was to create new concepts and solutions aimed at improving traffic in terms of safety, efficiency, and environmental impact. It was intended to develop new information management systems with the incorporation of electronics and artificial intelligence. Led by major European manufacturers, it involved electronics companies, component manufacturers, authorities, traffic engineers, etc. It was composed of four subprojects of basic research and three of applied research. Among the former, PRO-ART aimed at the use of artificial intelligence, PRO-CHIP focused on the development of hardware for intelligent processing in vehicles,...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Part I: Enabling Technologies
• Part II: Applications
• Part III: Additional Aspects
• Index