An Architecture for Experiments in Connected and Automated Vehicles

• Published in: IEEE open journal of intelligent transportation systems Vol. 4; p. 1
• Main Authors: Kloock, Maximilian, Scheffe, Patrick, Gress, Ole, Alrifaee, Bassam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.01.2023; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Actuators; Architectures for Experiments; Automation; Computer architecture; Connected and Automated Vehicles; Decision making; Distributed Decision-Making; Experiments; Hardware; Middleware; Network topologies; Networked Control Systems; Optimization; Rapid prototyping; Reproducibility; Sensors; Synchronization; Time lag; Trajectory
• ISSN: 2687-7813; 2687-7813
• DOI: 10.1109/OJITS.2023.3250951

Rapid prototyping of CAV is challenging because of the physical distribution of vehicles. Furthermore, experiments with CAV may be subject to external influences which prevent reproducibility. This article presents an architecture for the experimental testing of CAV, focusing on decision-making. Our architecture for experiments of CAV is strictly modular and hierarchical, and therefore it supports an easy and rapid exchange of every single controller as well as of optimization libraries. Additionally, the architecture synchronizes the whole network of sensors, computation devices, and actuators. Thus, it achieves deterministic and reproducible results, even for time-variant network topologies. Using this architecture, we can include active and passive vehicles and vehicles with heterogeneous dynamics in the experiments. The architecture also allows for handling communication uncertainties, e.g., data packet drop and time delay. The resulting architecture supports performing different in-the-loop tests and experiments. We demonstrate the architecture in the CPM Lab using 20 vehicles on a 1:18 scale. The architecture can be applied to other domains.