PATH

This final report describes the development and the initial field test of an automated snowblower, focusing on one of the more difficult snow removal operations: blowing snow off the freeway along side a guardrail without touching the guardrail. The objective is to minimize damage to the snowblower, guardrail, and other elements of the infrastructure by deploying highly accurate and robust automated steering. The automatic steering is accomplished by following magnets embedded under the roadway. The development process includes transforming this real-world automated highway winter...

The objectives of the project are: (1) to study the behavior of existing vehicle lateral control systems in the event of magnetometer failures, (2) to design controllers that use the output from only one set of magnetometers, and (3) to develop an autonomous lateral control scheme that uses no magnetometers. The performance of existing lateral control systems subject to magnetometer fail- ures is evaluated based on both linearized and complex nonlinear vehicle models. Simulation results indicate that rear magnetometer failures result in degraded oper- ation, and that front magnetometer...

In this report, we present a methodology for assessing the benefits of different vehicle coordination strategies on the safety of a platoon during emergency braking. One can say that a coordinated braking strategy B is more beneficial than a strategy, if strategy B leads to a larger reduction in the probability of a collision, the expected number of collisions, and the expected relative velocity at impact as compared to strategy .We consider an emergency braking scenario, in which the lead vehicle brakes at its maximum capability and the following vehicles brake while obeying a vehicle...

This report presents the hierarchical structure for the control design of an Automated Highway System (AHS). This control hierarchy has four layers: network, link, coordination, and regulation. It is used to model different AHS proposals. Control layers and the internal structure of each layer and the interfaces between then are described. Three basic maneuvers are described: join, split, and change lane. The SmartPath simulation tools are described to enable simulating AHS scenarios. The advantages of SmartPath include providing a graphical interface, providing microsimulation, and also...