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This paper proposed a multi-objective guaranteed feasible connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) platoon control method for signalized isolated intersections with priorities. Specifically, we prioritized the intersection throughput and traffic efficiency under a pre-defined signal cycle, based on which we minimized fuel consumption and emissions for CAV platoons. Longitudinal safety was also considered as a necessary condition. To handle the aforementioned targets, we firstly designed a vehicular sub-platoon splitting algorithm based on Farkas lemma to accommodate a maximum number of vehicles for each signal green time phase. Secondly, the CAV optimal trajectories control algorithm was designed as a centralized cooperative model predictive control (MPC). Moreover, the optimal control problem was formulated as discrete linear quadratic control problems with constraints with receding predictive horizons, which can be efficiently solved by quadratic programming after reformulation. For rigor, the proofs of the recursive feasibility and asymptotic stability of our proposed predictive control model were provided. For evaluation, the performance of the control algorithm was compared against a non-cooperative distributed CAV control through simulation. It was found that the proposed method can significantly enhance both traffic efficiency and energy efficiency with ensured safety for CAV platoons at urban signalized intersections.

In this paper, a vision-based crash detection framework was proposed to quickly detect various crash types in mixed traffic flow environment, considering low-visibility conditions. First, Retinex image enhancement algorithm was introduced to improve the quality of images, collected under low-visibility conditions (e.g., heavy rainy days, foggy days and dark night with poor lights). Then, a Yolo v3 model was trained to detect multiple objects from images, including fallen pedestrians/cyclists, vehicle rollover, moving/stopped vehicles, moving/stopped cyclists/pedestrians, and so on. Then, a set of features were developed from the Yolo outputs, based on which a decision model was trained for crash detection. An experiment was conducted to validate the model framework. The results showed that the proposed framework achieved a high detection rate of 92.5%, with relatively low false alarm rate of 7.5%. There are some useful findings: (1) the proposed model outperformed empirical rule-based detection models; (2) image enhancement method can largely improve crash detection performance under low-visibility conditions; (3) the accuracy of object detection (e.g., bounding box prediction) can impact crash detection performance, especially for minor motor-vehicle crashes. Overall, the proposed framework can be considered as a promising tool for quick crash detection in mixed traffic flow environment under various visibility conditions. Some limitations are also discussed in the paper.

For the cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) vehicular platoon, apart from decentralized controllers, the dynamics of a platoon can be affected substantially by the information flow among connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). Existing research studies mainly focus on the stability analysis of platoons where CAVs only adopt the predecessor-following (PF) communication scheme; however, when CAVs “look” further ahead or behind than one vehicle, the stability of platoons might change. To this end, this study seeks to explore the stability and investigate the rear-end collision risk of CACC vehicular platoon under diverse information flow topologies. The research first comprehensively reviews typical information flow topologies for CAV platoons and platoon stability criteria for analyzing local and string stability of platoons. Moreover, the CACC longitudinal dynamic model is derived using the exact feedback linearization technique, which accommodates the inertial delay of powertrain dynamics. Accordingly, sufficient conditions of stability are mathematically derived to guarantee distributed frequency-domain-based control parameters. Simulation experiments are conducted to verify the correctness of derived sufficient stability conditions. The results show that platoons could better maintain stability with more vehicle information taken into consideration. However, when assessing the safety, it is found that the bidirectional type information flow topology would increase rear-end collision risk for CAV platoon. Further, the information flow topology of two-predecessor-leader following is the most recommended to enhance fully CAV platoon stability.

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