The usage of autonomous ground vehicles is growingextensively. Therefore, it is important to gain a better understand-ing for the fundamentals of their communication network. Inthis paper, three important areas will be considered: Trajectorytracking, formation control and collision avoidance. Firstly,trajectory tracking is implemented for unicycles to direct them toa reference path. Secondly, formation control is examined for twoapproaches: A method based on virtual structure with a presettrajectory for unicycles and a method based on displacement forpoint agents. Finally, collision avoidance is incorporated withthe displacement-based controller. For this case, agents keepformation without colliding within formation and with staticobstacles in the workspace. The proposed controllers are verifiedthrough simulations in MATLAB. / Användningen av autonoma markfordon har ökat kraftigt de senaste åren. Således är det viktigt att få en bättre förståelse för grunderna i deras kommunikationsnätverk. I detta projekt studeras tre essentiella områden: projektilspårning, formationshållning och undvikning av kollisioner. Först och främst implementeras projektilspårning för en enhjuling där den styrs mot en önskad projektilbana. Därefter betraktas formationshållning genom två metoder: Den första metoden handlar om virtuella strukturer med en förutbestämd bana för enhjulingar. Den andra metoden baseras på en förskjutningsbaserad regulator. Slutligen införs undvikning av kollisioner tillsammans med den förskjutningsbaserade regulatorn för att uppnå ett kollisionsundvikande robotsystem. Samtliga objektiv inom de tre områdena nås med varierande precision. / Kandidatexjobb i elektroteknik 2020, KTH, Stockholm

Collision avoidance systems (CASs) are being developed and fielded to reduce the number and severity of rear-end crashes. Kinematic algorithms within CASs evaluate sensor input and apply assumptions describing human-response timing and deceleration to determine when an alert should be presented. This dissertation presents an analytic assessment of dynamic function and performance CASs and associated driver performance for preventing automotive rear-end crashes. A method for using naturalistic data in the evaluation of CAS algorithms is described and applied to three algorithms. Time-series parametric data collected during 13 rear-end crashes and 70 near-crashes are input into models of collision avoidance algorithms to determine when the alerts would have occurred. Algorithm performance is measured by estimating how much of the driving population would be able to respond in the time available between when an alert would occur and when braking was needed. A sensitivity analysis was performed to consider the effect of alternative inputs into the assessment method. The algorithms were found to warn in sufficient time to permit 50–70% of the population to avoid collision in similar scenarios. However, the accuracy of this estimate was limited because the tested algorithms were found to alert too frequently to be feasible. The response of the assessment method was most sensitive to differences in assumed response-time distributions and assumed driver braking levels. Low-speed crashes were not addressed by two of the algorithms. Analysis of the events revealed that the necessary avoidance deceleration based on kinematics was generally less than 2 s in duration. At the time of driver response, the time remaining to avoid collision using a 0.5g average deceleration ranged from â 1.1 s to 2.1 s. In 10 of 13 crashes, no driver response deceleration was present. Mean deceleration for the 70 near-crashes was 0.37g and maximum was 0.72g. A set of the events was developed to measure driver response time. The mean driver response time was 0.7 s to begin braking and 1.1 s to reach maximum deceleration. Implications for collision countermeasures are considered, response-time results are compared to previous distributions and future work is discussed. / Ph. D.

Air corridors are an integral part of the advanced air mobility infrastructure. They are the virtual highways in the sky for transportation of people and cargo in the controlled airspace at an altitude of around 1000 ft. to 2000 ft. above the ground level. This paper presents fundamental insights into the design of air corridors with high operational efficiency as well as zero collisions. It begins with the definitions of air cube, skylane or track, intersection, vertiport, gate, and air corridor. Then, a multi-layered air corridor model is proposed. Traffic at intersections is analyzed in detail with examples of vehicles turning in different directions. The concept of capacity of an air corridor is introduced along with the nature of distribution of locations of vehicles in the air corridor and collision probability inside the corridor are discussed. Finally, the results of simulations of traffic flows are presented.

This thesis presents an evaluation of the performance, in terms of throughput and latency, of two Media Access Control (MAC) mechanisms in Underwater Acoustic Networks (UANs), using a model designed in the COTS simulation tool OPNET 10.5. The carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance is the predominant approach for implementing the MAC mechanism in UANs. However, the underwater acoustic environment is characterized by extreme propagation delays and limited bandwidth, which suggests that an Aloha-like scheme may merit consideration. The performance of these two schemes was compared with respect to two topologies: tree and grid. The results showed that an Aloha-like scheme that does not segment messages outperforms the contention-based scheme under all load conditions, in terms of both throughput and latency, for the two topologies. This thesis is the first to establish that Aloha-like MAC mechanisms can be more than a limited alternative for lightly loaded networks; more specifically, they can be the preferred choice for an environment with large propagation delays. / Lieutenant Commander, Portuguese Navy

The problem of aircraft conflict detection and resolution (CDR) in uncertainty is addressed in this thesis. The main goal in CDR is to provide safety for the aircraft while minimizing their fuel consumption and flight delays. In reality, a high degree of uncertainty can exist in certain aircraft-aircraft encounters especially in cases where aircraft do not have the capabilities to communicate with each other. Through the use of a probabilistic approach and a multiple model (MM) trajectory information processing framework, this uncertainty can be effectively handled. For conflict detection, a randomized Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm is used to accurately detect conflicts, and, if a conflict is detected, a conflict resolution algorithm is run that utilizes a sequential list Viterbi algorithm. This thesis presents the MM CDR method and a comprehensive MC simulation and performance evaluation study that demonstrates its capabilities and efficiency.

Over the past few decades, wireless local area networks (WLANs) have been widely deployed for data communication in indoor environments such as offices, houses, and airports. In order to fairly and efficiently use the unlicensed frequency band that Wi-Fi devices share, the devices follow a set of channel access rules, which is called a wireless medium access control (MAC) protocol. It is known that wireless devices following the 802.11 standard MAC protocol, i.e. the distributed coordination function (DCF), suffer from packet collisions when multiple nodes simultaneously transmit. This significantly degrades the throughput performance. Recently, several studies have reported access techniques to reduce the number of packet collisions and to achieve a collision free WLAN. Although these studies have shown that the number of collisions can be reduced to zero in a simple way, there have been a couple of remaining issues to solve, such as dynamic parameter adjustment and fairness to legacy DCF nodes in terms of channel access opportunity. Recently, In-Band Full Duplex (IBFD) communication has received much attention, because it has significant potential to improve the communication capacity of a radio band. IBFD means that a node can simultaneously transmit one signal and receive another signal in the same band at the same time. In order to maximize the performance of IBFD communication capability and to fairly share access to the wireless medium among distributed devices in WLANs, a number of IBFD MAC protocols have been proposed. However, little attention has been paid to fairness issues between half duplex nodes (i.e. nodes that can either transmit or receive but not both simultaneously in one time-frequency resource block) and IBFD capable nodes in the presence of the hidden node problem.

Abstract: This thesis addresses the problem of graceful degradation for air traffic management systems (ATMS). The graceful degradation is the process by which the safety of the airspace is ensured in the event of failures or operational degradation in the system. After listing the main areas where failures and degradation can affect the ATMS, an ontology of the ATMS is proposed. The ontology allows to introduce failures at different levels, track their propagation throughout the system, and measure their operational impact. Then, two operational degradations are studied: The first degradation studied is a reduction in the landing capacity at San Francisco International Airport. The aircraft queueing process for terminal area is modeled and optimized to ensure a graceful degradation. The second degradation encompasses Communication, Navigation and Surveillance systems failures. The graceful degradation is ensured by increasing the spacing distance between aircraft, using novel algorithms of avoidance under uncertainties. Those algorithm also serve as probes to compare the degradation capabilities of different traffic configurations such as Miles-In-Trail and Free-Flight arrivals. Finally, this thesis focuses on monitoring the airspace for potential degradation. The ability and the difficulty of en-route traffic configuration are evaluated using degradation maps. Those maps can be used controller to rapidly and efficiently steer traffic from nominal mode of operations to mode of operations under abnormal conditions. Finally, a monitoring tool for terminal area is presented: the conformance of current flight to pre-identified typical operations is determined in real time. As the number of non-conforming aircraft increases, the complexity seen by air traffic controllers increases, and can become a threat for the airspace safety.

Τα τελευταία χρόνια εξελίξεις στην τεχνολογία της μικροηλεκτρονικής και των ψηφιακών επικοινωνιών έκαναν δυνατή τη δημιουργία αυτόνομων μικροσκοπικών συσκευών, εξοπλισμένων με αισθητήρες, επεξεργαστή και δυνατότητα ασύρματης επικοινωνίας, που ονομάζονται μικροαισθητήρες. Τα ασύρματα δίκτυα μικροαισθητήρων αποτελούνται από ένα μεγάλο πλήθος μικροαισθητήρων που τοποθετούνται (συνήθως με τυχαίο τρόπο) σε μία περιοχή ενδιαφέροντος προκειμένου να μετρήσουν την τιμή ενός μεγέθους ενδιαφέροντος. Λόγω των περιορισμένων δυνατοτήτων των συσκευών, τόσο σε υπολογιστικούς πόρους, μνήμη και εμβέλεια επικοινωνίας όσο και κυρίως σε αποθέματα ενέργειας, είναι αναγκαία η ανάπτυξη πρωτοκόλλων επικοινωνίας που λαμβάνουν υπόψη τους περιορισμούς αυτούς. Στο παρόν κείμενο παρουσιάζουμε νέα πρωτόκολλα για ασύρματα δίκτυα μικροαισθητήρων. Τα πρωτόκολλα καλύπτουν πολλές σημαντικές πτυχές του προβλήματος της επικοινωνίας σε αυτή την κατηγορία δικτύων, όπως είναι η αποτελεσματική διάδοση δεδομένων, η αποφυγή συγκρούσεων και η εξοικονόμηση ενέργειας. Ο σχεδιασμός τέτοιων πρωτοκόλλων απαιτεί ανάπτυξη και χρήση μη τετριμμένων αλγοριθμικών τεχνικών, όπως είναι η προσαρμοστικότητα, η ικανοποίηση \\\\EN{trade-offs}, η ετερογένεια του δικτύου ως σχεδιαστικό εργαλείο κλπ. Η ανάλυση των πρωτοκόλλων γίνεται με την διεξαγωγή εξαντλητικών πειραμάτων προσομοίωσης μεγάλης κλίμακας και την μέτρηση της απόδοσής τους σε συγκεκριμένες μετρικές. Οι επιδόσεις των πρωτοκόλλων αξιολογούνται σε σύγκριση με ευρέως αποδεκτά αντίστοιχα πρωτόκολλα που έχουν προταθεί στη διεθνή βιβλιογραφία. / In recent years, advances in technology in the areas of microelectronics and digital communications made possible the creation of tiny autonomous devices, that are equipped with sensors, a processor and wireless communication capabilities, which are called sensors. Wireless sensor networks are comprised of a large number of sensor devices which are deployed (usually in a random manner) in an area of interest, in order to measure the value of a condition. Due to the limited capabilities of the devices, in processing, memory, communication range and mostly energy supplies, it is necessary to develop communication protocols that take into account these limitations. In this work we present new protocols for wireless sensor networks. Our protocols cover many important aspects of the problem of efficient communication in this type of networks, such as efficient data propagation, collision avoidance and energy conservation. The design of such protocols requires the development and use of non-trivial algorithmic techniques, such as adaptation, satisfaction of trade-offs, using the heterogeneity of the network as a design tool etc. The analysis of the protocols is performed by conducting thorough, large scale simulation experiments and measuring their performance in various metrics. The performance of the protocols is evaluated in comparison to well known widely accepted protocols proposed in the international literature.

Cette thèse présente l'implémentation d'une stratégie visuelle bio-inspirée sur un aéroglisseur miniature totalement actionné, qui lui permet de naviguer dans le plan horizontal d'un tunnel inconnu. L'élaboration de ce pilote automatique, nommé LORA, fait suite aux études éthologiques menées sur l'abeille depuis ces dernières décennies et nous ont amené à énoncer le principe de la régulation du flux optique pour le contrôle du vol de croisière. Ce pilote automatique est un double régulateur de flux optique latéral constitué de deux boucles visuo-motrices interdépendantes contrôlant conjointement la vitesse d'avance et la position du robot par rapport aux obstacles sans avoir à mesurer ou estimer aucun de ces paramètres. La clé de voûte de ce système de guidage est une troisième boucle destinée à maintenir le cap grâce à un micro-gyromètre et un micro-compas magnétique permettant au robot d'effectuer des mouvements de translation qui génèrent sur son œil composé artificiel du flux optique de translation, seul dépendant du ratio vitesse/distance aux obstacles. Cet œil estime le flux optique grâce à ses deux ou quatre Détecteurs élémentaires de mouvement (total de 4 ou 8 pixels). L'aéroglisseur est alors capable de franchir sans collision, à la manière d'une abeille, divers tunnels : droit, fuselé ou présentant une pente, un virage, une absence de texture sur un mur ou même une zone non-stationnaire. Cette stratégie visuelle bio-inspirée fournit non seulement une solution de navigation élégante à destination de robots totalement actionnés mais elle permet aussi d'expliquer comment une abeille de 100mg peut naviguer sans l'aide de SONAR, RADAR, LIDAR, ou GPS. / In this work, we present for the first time a bio-inspired motion vision-based navigation strategy embedded on a miniature fully-actuated hovercraft allowing it to navigate safely on the horizontal plane of an unknown corridor. The design of this autopilot, called LORA, follows the ethological findings made on honeybees these last decades, which led us to elaborate the principle of the optic flow regulation which might be used by insects to control their flight. The bee-inspired LORA autopilot is a dual optic flow regulator which consists in two intertwined visuomotor feedback loops which control jointly the forward speed of the robot and its clearance to the obstacles. The keystone of this bio-inspired guidance system is a heading-lock system enabling the robot to move in translations and therefore experience a purely translational optic flow which depends only on the ratio speed/clearance to obstacles thanks to a micro-gyrometer and a micro-magnetic compass. The estimation of optic flow is made by a minimalist compound eye, made of two or four Elementary Motion Detectors (only 4 or 8 pixels). The hovercraft is therefore able to cross without crashing a straight or a tapered corridor, presenting a frontal sloping terrain, a bend, a textureless wall, or even a non-stationary section by automatically adapting both its forward speed and its clearance to the walls imitating the honeybee. This bio-inspired visual strategy not only provides an elegant navigation solution in an unknown environment aimed to equip fully-actuated miniature vehicles but also to explain how a 100mg honeybee can navigate with few computational ressources, i.e., without any SONAR, RADAR, LIDAR or GPS.

Deep learning has been rapidly growing in recent years obtaining excellent results for many computer vision applications, such as image classification and object detection. One aspect for the increased popularity of deep learning is that it mitigates the need for hand-crafted features. This thesis work investigates deep learning as a methodology to solve the problem of autonomous collision avoidance for a small robotic car. To accomplish this, transfer learning is used with the VGG16 deep network pre-trained on ImageNet dataset. A dataset has been collected and then used to fine-tune and validate the network offline. The deep network has been used with the robotic car in a real-time manner. The robotic car sends images to an external computer, which is used for running the network. The predictions from the network is sent back to the robotic car which takes actions based on those predictions. The results show that deep learning has great potential in solving the collision avoidance problem.