The dynamic nature of vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) induced by frequent topology changes and node mobility, imposes critical challenges for vehicular communications. Aggravated by the high volume of information dissemination among vehicles over limited bandwidth, the topological dynamics of VANET causes congestion in the communication channel, which is the primary cause of problems such as message drop, delay, and degraded quality of service. To mitigate these problems, congestion detection, and control techniques are needed to be incorporated in a vehicular network. Congestion control approaches can be either open-loop or closed loop based on pre-congestion or post congestion strategies. We present a general architecture of vehicular communication in urban and highway environment as well as a state-of-the-art survey of recent congestion detection and control techniques. We also identify the drawbacks of existing approaches and classify them according to different hierarchical schemes. Through an extensive literature review, we recommend solution approaches and future directions for handling congestion in vehicular communications.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a vision for an internetwork of intelligent, communicating objects, which is on the cusp of transforming human lives. Smart transportation is one of the critical application domains of IoT and has benefitted from using state-of-the-art technology to combat urban issues such as traffic congestion while promoting communication between the vehicles, increasing driver safety, traffic efficiency and ultimately paving the way for autonomous vehicles. Connected Vehicle (CV) technology, enabled by Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), has attracted significant attention from industry, academia, and government, due to its potential for improving driver comfort and safety. These vehicular communications have stringent transmission requirements. To assure the effectiveness and reliability of DRSC, efficient algorithms are needed to ensure adequate quality of service in the event of network congestion. Previously proposed congestion control methods that require high levels of cooperation among Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) nodes. This paper proposes a new approach, VANETomo, which uses statistical Network Tomography (NT) to infer transmission delays on links between vehicles with no cooperation from connected nodes. Our proposed method combines open and closed loops congestion control in a VANET environment. Simulation results show VANETomo outperforming other congestion control strategies.

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I processen att optimera och elektrifiera fordon som använder sig utav batterier har litiumjon battericeller introducerats till fordonen. Det vanligaste sättet är att tillverkaren installerar en stor battericell (> 10 Ah) i fordonen. En stor cell har många fördelar mot en liten cell, som att den är lättare att hantera, den utrustning som krävs för att övervaka cellen blir mindre och det krävs inga kopplingar mellan flertal celler. Det finns däremot en mängd fördelar med att ha mindre celler (< 5 Ah). De mindre cellerna skulle kunna bidra till en lägre kostnad, en jämnare värmefördelning över systemet och framförallt lättare att mekaniskt installera fordonet. Det vanligaste är att företag använder sig utav de större cellerna, det finns däremot fåtal exempel i privata fordonssektorn där tillverkare använder sig utav de mindre cellerna. Att använda sig utav de mindre cellerna kräver ett annat tänk när det gäller kylning, paketering i fordonen samt bevakningen av cellernas hårdvara och mjukvara blir annorlunda. Detta projekt har fokuserat på de elektriska och termiska aspekterna för implementering av parallellt kopplade små litiumjonceller i tunga fordon, som bussar och lastbilar. I projektet utfördes prestandaprov där temperatur, spänning och ström monitorerades över cellerna. Syftet var att öka kunskapen inom området för dessa små celler för att se om dessa har en potentiell plats på den kommersiella marknaden i framtiden. Målet med detta projekt är att mäta den spridning av ström som sker mellan de parallellt kopplade cellerna under variering av temperatur mellan cellerna. Från de utförda experimenten syns det tydligt att det sker en spridning av strömmen mellan cellerna. Den temperaturskillnaden som testas under experimentet påverkar inte strömmens spridning tillräckligt för att det ska visa någon differens i strömspridningen mellan cellerna. Detta ledde till att slutsatsen för projektet blir att det sker en strömspridning mellan parallellt kopplade celler, men temperaturdifferensen på tio grader celsius är inte tillräcklig för att påverka cellerna så pass att spridningen blir större. Under projektets gång möttes vi av många utmaningar och svårigheter. Detta har gjorde att den tid som kunde spenderas på provfasen blev väldigt kort. Det ufördes därför en minimal mängd av prov, vilket betyder att den data som samlades in under projektet inte var lika omfattande som det från början önskats. / In the process of optimizing and electrifying vehicles using batteries, lithium-ion battery cells have been introduced to the vehicles. The most common way is that the manufacturer installs a large battery cell (> 10 Ah) in the vehicles. A large cell has many advantages to a small cell. For example it is easier to handle, the equipment required to monitor the cell becomes smaller and no connections between multiple cells are required. On the other hand, there are many advantages of having smaller cells (<5 Ah). The smaller cells could contribute to a lower cost, a more even heat distribution across the system and, above all, easier to mechanically install in the vehicle. The most common choice for companies is to use the larger cells, but there are few examples in the private vehicle sector where manufacturers use the smaller cells. Using the smaller cells requires a different idea when it comes to cooling the cells, packing in the vehicles, and monitoring the hardware and software of the cells are different. This project focused on the electrical and thermal aspects of implementing parallel-connected small lithium-ion cells in heavy vehicles, such as buses and lorries. In this project performance tests were performed where temperature, voltage and current are monitored across the cells. The aim was to increase knowledge in the area of these small cells, to see if they have a potential place in the commercial market in the future. The goal of this project was to measure the spread of current that occurs between the parallel-connected cells during the varying temperature between the cells. From the experiments carried out, it was clear that there’s a spread of the current between the cells. The temperature difference tested during the experiment does not affect the spread of the current enough to show any difference in the current spread between the cells. Which leads to the conclusion of the project that there are a current spread between parallelconnected cells. However, the temperature difference of ten degrees Celsius is not sufficient to affect the cells enough that the spread becomes larger. The project faced a lot of challenges and difficulties. This has meant that the time spent on the experimental phase became very short. Therefore, a minimal amount of experiments was completed, which in turn means that the data collected for the project is not as extensive as it was meant to be initially.

Connectivity has been introduced to the car industry and currently Volvo, amongother automobile companies, currently has cars which are connected to the internetand can share data with external devices or services. However, these connected carsoften face issues with connectivity which is a concern for user quality of experience(QoE). One such issue is the difficulty of knowing how the connection changes over timeand if there are issues with said connectivity. In this work, use of different machinelearning techniques on charged data record (CDR) data is described to forecast thedefined key performance indicators (KPIs) derived from the CDR data. Additionally,use of unsupervised machine learning techniques to detect anomalies in the KPIs isinvestigated. The results show that in case of forecasting models, performance of Longshort term memory (LSTM) model surpasses other models.In case of unsupervisedmachine learning techniques like clustering methods, the performance of K-Means++model is found to be mediocre when evaluated using confusion matrix. / <p>Online</p>

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Doctor of Philosophy / Self-driving cars promise a future with safer roads and reduced traffic incidents and fatalities. This future hinges on the car's accurate understanding of its surrounding environment; however, the reliability of the algorithms that form this perception is not always guaranteed and adverse traffic and environmental conditions can significantly diminish the performance of these algorithms. To solve this problem, this research builds on the idea that enabling cars to share and exchange information via communication allows them to extend the range and quality of their perception beyond their capability. To that end, this research formulates a robust and flexible framework for cooperative perception, explores how connected vehicles can learn to collaborate to improve their perception, and introduces an affordable, experimental vehicle platform for connected autonomy research.

The deployment of Automated Vehicles (AV) is starting to become widespread throughout transportation, resulting in the recognition and awareness by legislative leaders of the potential impact on transportation operations. To assist transportation operators in making the needed preparations for these vehicles, an in-depth study regarding the impact of AV and Connected Automated Vehicles (CAV) is needed. In this research, the impact of AV and CAV on the highway setting is studied. This study addresses car-following models that are currently used for simulating AV and CAV. Diverse car-following models, such as the Intelligent Driver Model (IDM), the IDM with traffic adaptive driving Strategy (SIDM), the Improved IDM (IIDM), the IIDM with Constant-Acceleration Heuristic (CAH), and the MIcroscopic model for Simulation of Intelligent Cruise control (MIXIC) were examined with the state-of-the-art vehicle trajectory data. The Highway Drone dataset (HighD) were analyzed through the implementation of genetic algorithm to gain more insight about the trajectories of these vehicles. In 2020, there is no commercially available gully automated vehicle available to the public, although many companies are conducting in field testing. This research generated AV trajectories based on the actual vehicle trajectories from the High-D dataset and adjusts those trajectories to account for ideal AV operations. The analysis from the fitted trajectory data shows that the calibrated IIDM with CAH provides a best fit on AV behavior. Next, the AV and CAV were modeled in microscopic perspective to show the impact of these vehicles on a corridor. The traffic simulation software, VISSIM, modified by implementing an external driver model to govern the interactions between Legacy Vehicles (LV), AV, and CAV on a basic and merging highway segment as well as a model of the Interstate 95 corridor south of Richmond, Virginia. From the analysis, this research revealed that the AV and CAV could increase highway capacity significantly. Even with a small portion of AV or CAV, the roadway capacity increased. On I-95, CAV performed better than AV because of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) and platooning due to CAV's ability to coordinate movement through communication; however, in weaving segments, CAV underperformed AV. This result indicates that the CAV algorithms would need to be flexible in order to maintain flow in areas with weaving sections. Lastly, diverse operational conditions, such as different heavy vehicle market penetration and different aggressiveness were examined to support traffic operators transition to the introduction of AV and CAV. Based on the analysis, the study concludes that the different aggressiveness could mitigate congestion in all cases if the proper aggressiveness level is selected considering the current traffic condition. Overall, the dissertation provides guidance to researchers, traffic operators, and lawmakers to model, simulate, and evaluate AV and CAV on highways. / Doctor of Philosophy / The deployment of Automated Vehicles (AV) is starting to become widespread throughout transportation, resulting in the recognition and awareness by legislative leaders of the potential impact on transportation operations. To assist transportation operators in making the needed preparations for these vehicles, an in-depth study regarding the impact of AV and Connected Automated Vehicles (CAV) is needed. In this research, the impact of AV and CAV on the highway setting is studied. This study addresses car-following models that are currently used for simulating AV and CAV. Diverse car-following models, such as the Intelligent Driver Model (IDM), the IDM with traffic adaptive driving Strategy (SIDM), the Improved IDM (IIDM), the IIDM with Constant-Acceleration Heuristic (CAH), and the MIcroscopic model for Simulation of Intelligent Cruise control (MIXIC) were examined with the state-of-the-art vehicle trajectory data. The Highway Drone dataset (HighD) were analyzed through the implementation of genetic algorithm to gain more insight about the trajectories of these vehicles. In 2020, there is no commercially available gully automated vehicle available to the public, although many companies are conducting in field testing. This research generated AV trajectories based on the actual vehicle trajectories from the High-D dataset and adjusts those trajectories to account for ideal AV operations. The analysis from the fitted trajectory data shows that the calibrated IIDM with CAH provides a best fit on AV behavior. Next, the AV and CAV were modeled in microscopic perspective to show the impact of these vehicles on a corridor. The traffic simulation software, VISSIM, modified by implementing an external driver model to govern the interactions between Legacy Vehicles (LV), AV, and CAV on a basic and merging highway segment as well as a model of the Interstate 95 corridor south of Richmond, Virginia. From the analysis, this research revealed that the AV and CAV could increase highway capacity significantly. Even with a small portion of AV or CAV, the roadway capacity increased. On I-95, CAV performed better than AV because of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) and platooning due to CAV's ability to coordinate movement through communication; however, in weaving segments, CAV underperformed AV. This result indicates that the CAV algorithms would need to be flexible in order to maintain flow in areas with weaving sections. Lastly, diverse operational conditions, such as different heavy vehicle market penetration and different aggressiveness were examined to support traffic operators transition to the introduction of AV and CAV. Based on the analysis, the study concludes that the different aggressiveness could mitigate congestion in all cases if the proper aggressiveness level is selected considering the current traffic condition. Overall, the dissertation provides guidance to researchers, traffic operators, and lawmakers to model, simulate, and evaluate AV and CAV on highways.

The use of connected and autonomous ground and aerial vehicles is a promising solution to reduce accidents, improve the traffic efficiency, and provide various services ranging from delivery of goods to monitoring. Different from the current connected vehicles and autonomous vehicles, connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) combine autonomy and wireless connectivity and use both sensors and communication systems to increase their situational awareness and for their decision-making. However, in order to reap all the benefits of deploying CAVs, one must consider the interconnection between communication, control, and learning mechanisms for the CAV system design. The key goal of this dissertation is, thus, to develop foundational science that can be used for the design, analysis, and optimization of CAV systems while jointly taking into account the synergies among communication, control, and learning systems. First, a joint communication and control system design is developed for non-coordinated CAVs when performing autonomous path tracking. In particular, the maximum time delay requirements are derived to guarantee the stability of the controller when tracking two typical road scenarios (i.e., straight line and circular curve). Tools from optimization theory and risk theory are then used to jointly optimize the control system and power allocation for the communication network so as to maximize the number of vehicular links that meet the controller's delay requirements. Second, the joint control and communication design framework is extended to two coordinated CAVs applications, i.e., CAV platoons and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms. Third, a distributed machine learning algorithm, i.e., federated learning (FL), is proposed for a swarm of connected and autonomous UAVs to execute tasks, such as coordinated trajectory planning and cooperative target recognition. In particular, a rigorous convergence analysis for FL is performed to show how wireless factors impact the FL convergence performance, and the design of UAV swarm networks is optimized to reduce the convergence time. Fourth, a new FL framework, called dynamic federated proximal (DFP) algorithm, is proposed for designing the autonomous controller of CAVs while considering the mobility of CAVs, the wireless fading channels, as well as the unbalanced and non independent and identically distributed data across CAVs. To improve the convergence of the proposed DFP algorithm, a contract-theoretic incentive mechanism is also proposed. Fifth, a wireless-enabled asynchronous federated learning (AFL) framework is proposed for urban air mobility (UAM) aircraft to collaboratively learn the turbulence prediction model. In particular, to characterize how UAM aircraft leverage wireless connectivity for AFL, a stochastic geometry based spatial model is developed and the wireless connectivity performance is analyzed. Then, a rigorous convergence analysis is performed for the proposed AFL framework to identify how fast the UAM aircraft converge to using the optimal turbulence prediction model. Sixth, based on the concordance order from stochastic ordering theory, a dependence control mechanism is proposed to improve the overall reliability of wireless networks for CAVs. Finally, to determine the optimal cache placement for CAVs, a novel spatio-temporal caching framework is proposed where the notion of graph motifs, i.e., the spatio-temporal communication patterns in wireless networks, is used. In conclusion, the frameworks presented in this dissertation will provide key fundamental guidelines to design, analyze, and optimize CAV systems. / Doctor of Philosophy / The evolution of transportation systems has always been the key to the progress of human societies. Recently, technology advances in sensing, autonomy, computing, and wireless connectivity ushered in the era of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). In essence, CAVs rely on the data collected from sensors and wireless communication systems to automatically make the operation decision. If designed properly, the deployment of CAVs can improve the safety and the driving experience, increase the fuel efficiency and road capacity, as well as provide various services ranging from delivery of goods to monitoring. To reap all these benefits of deploying CAVs, one must address a number of technique challenges related to the wireless connectivity, autonomy, and autonomous learning for CAV systems. In particular, for CAV connectivity, the challenges include building a low latency and highly reliable network, using proper models for mobile radio channels, and determining the effective content dissemination strategy. At the control level, key considerations include guaranteeing stability and robustness for the controller when faced with measurement errors and wireless imperfections and rapidly adapting the CAV to dynamic environments. Meanwhile, when CAVs use machine learning to complete their tasks (e.g., object detection and environment monitoring), insufficient training data, privacy concerns, communication overhead, and limited energy are among the main challenges. Therefore, this dissertation develops the foundational science needed to design, analyze, and optimize CAVs while jointly taking into account the challenges within the wireless network, controller, and leaning mechanism design. To this end, various frameworks for the joint communication, control, and learning design and wireless network optimizations are proposed for different CAV applications. The results show that, using the proposed frameworks, the performance of CAVs can be optimized with more reliable communication systems, more stable controller, and improved learning mechanism, enabling intelligent transportation systems for the future smart cities.

This thesis describes the implementation of a speaker dependent connected-digit recognizer using continuous Hidden Markov Modeling (HMM). The speech recognition system was implemented using MATLAB and on the ADSP-2181, a digital signal processor manufactured by Analog Devices. Linear predictive coding (LPC) analysis was first performed on a speech signal to model the characteristics of the vocal tract filter. A 7 state continuous HMM with 4 mixture density components was used to model each digit. The Viterbi reestimation method was primarily used in the training phase to obtain the parameters of the HMM. Viterbi decoding was used for the recognition phase. The system was first implemented as an isolated word recognizer. Recognition rates exceeding 99% were obtained on both the MATLAB and the ADSP-2181 implementations. For continuous word recognition, several algorithms were implemented and compared. Using MATLAB, recognition rates exceeding 90% were obtained. In addition, the algorithms were implemented on the ADSP-2181 yielding recognition rates comparable to the MATLAB implementation. / Master of Science