This degree project addresses poaching challenges by employing predictive analysis of animal movements and their correlation with the dynamic environment using a machine learning approach. The goal is to provide accurate predictions of animal movements, enabling rangers to intercept potential threats and safeguard wildlife from snares. A wide analysis considers previous studies on animal movements and both animal and environment data availability. To efficiently represent the dynamic environment and correlate it with animal movement data, accurate matching of environment variables to each animal measurement is crucial. We selected multiple environment datasets to capture a sufficient amount ofenvironmental properties. Due to practical constraints, daily representation of the environment is not achievable, and weekly mean or monthly mode values are used instead. Data insights are obtained through the training of a regression neural network using the filtered environmental and animal movement data. The results highlight the significant role ofenvironmental features in predicting animal movements, emphasizing their importance for accurate predictions. Despite some offset and few erroneous predictions, a strong similarity between animal predicted trajectory and animal true trajectory was achieved, indicating that the model is capable to capture general patterns and to correctly tune in predictions of detailed movements as well. The overall offset of the trajectories is still a weak point of this model, but it may just indicate the presence of some underlying systematic error that can be corrected through further work. The integration of such a developed prediction model into existing frameworks could assist law enforcingauthorities in preventing poaching activities.

With the development of autonomous driving technology, vehicle trajectory prediction has become a hot topic in the intelligent traffic area. However, complex road conditions may bring multiple challenges to the vehicle trajectory prediction model. To address this, most recent studies mainly focus on designing different neural network structures to learn vehicles’ dynamics and interaction features for better prediction. In this thesis we restrict our research scope to highway scenarios. Based on the experimental comparison among Vanilla Recurrent Neural Network (Vanilla RNN), Vanilla Long short-term memory (Vanilla LSTM), and Vanilla-Transformer, we find the best configuration of the Dynamics-Only encoder module and utilize it to design a novel model called the LSTM-Attention model for vehicle trajectory prediction. The objective of our design is to explore whether the Self-Attention mechanism based encoder outperforms the pooling mechanism based encoder utilized in most current baseline models. The experiment results on the interaction encoder module show that the Self- Attention mechanism based encoder with 8 heads outperforms the pooling mechanism based encoder for the longer prediction horizons. To test the robustness of our LSTM-Attention model, we also compare the prediction performance between using Maneuver-Based decoder and using Maneuver-Free decoder, respectively. According to the experiment results, we find the Maneuver-Based decoder performs better on the heavily unbalanced Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) dataset. Finally, to explore other latent interaction features our LSTM-Attention model might fuse, we analyze the Graph-Based encoder and the Polar-Based encoder, respectively. Based on this, we find more meaningful designs that could be exploited in our future work. / Med utvecklingen av självkörande fordon har förmågan att förutsäga fordonsbanan blivit ett attraktivt ämne inom intelligenta trafiksystem. Däremot kan komplexa vägförhållanden medföra flera utmaningar för modellering av fordonets bana. För att ta itu med detta fokuserar de senaste studierna huvudsakligen på att designa olika neurala nätverksstrukturer för att lära sig fordons dynamiker och interaktioner för bättre kunna förutsäga resebanan. I denna avhandling begränsar vi vårt forskningsområde till motorvägsscenarier. Baserat på den experimentella jamförelsen mellan Vanilla Recurrent Neural Network (Vanilla RNN), Vanilla Long-korttidsminne (Vanilla LSTM) och Vanilla-Transformer, hittar vi den bästa konfigurationen av Dynamic-Only kodningsmodulen och använder den för att designa en enkel modell som vi kallar LSTM- Attention-modellen för förutsägelse av fordonets resebana. Målet med vår design är att undersöka om den Self-Attention-baserade kodaren överträffar den pooling-baserade kodaren som används i de flesta nuvarande basmodeller. Experimentens resultat på interaktionskodarmodulen visar att Self-Attention kodaren med 8 huvuden överträffar den poolning baserade kodaren när de gäller längre fönster av förutsägelser. För att testa robustheten hos vår LSTM-Attention-modell, jämför vi också prestandan mellan att använda manöverbaserad avkodare respektive att använda manöverfri avkodare. Enligt experimentens resultat finner vi att den manöverbaserade avkodaren presterar bättre på den kraftigt obalanserade Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) datamängden. Slutligen, för att utforska andra möjliga egenskaper som vår LSTM-Attention-modell kan utnytja, analyserar vi den grafbaserade kodaren respektive den polbaserade kodaren. Baserat på detta så hittar vi mer meningsfulla mönster som skulle kunna utnyttjas i framtida arbeten.

<p dir="ltr">Autonomous vehicles require motion forecasting of their surrounding multiagents (pedestrians</p><p dir="ltr">and vehicles) to make optimal decisions for navigation. The existing methods focus on</p><p dir="ltr">techniques to utilize the positions and velocities of these agents and fail to capture semantic</p><p dir="ltr">information from the scene. Moreover, to mitigate the increase in computational complexity</p><p dir="ltr">associated with the number of agents in the scene, some works leverage Euclidean distance to</p><p dir="ltr">prune far-away agents. However, distance-based metric alone is insufficient to select relevant</p><p dir="ltr">agents and accurately perform their predictions. To resolve these issues, we propose the</p><p dir="ltr">Semantics-aware Interactive Multiagent Motion Forecasting (SIMMF) method to capture</p><p dir="ltr">semantics along with spatial information and optimally select relevant agents for motion</p><p dir="ltr">prediction. Specifically, we achieve this by implementing a semantic-aware selection of relevant</p><p dir="ltr">agents from the scene and passing them through an attention mechanism to extract</p><p dir="ltr">global encodings. These encodings along with agents’ local information, are passed through</p><p dir="ltr">an encoder to obtain time-dependent latent variables for a motion policy predicting the future</p><p dir="ltr">trajectories. Our results show that the proposed approach outperforms state-of-the-art</p><p dir="ltr">baselines and provides more accurate and scene-consistent predictions. </p>

There is a need for a fuel-optimal required time of arrival (RTA) mode for aircraft flight management systems capable of enabling controlled time of arrival functionality in the presence of wind speed forecast uncertainty. A computationally tractable two-stage stochastic algorithm utilizing a data-driven, location-specific forecast uncertainty model to generate forecast uncertainty scenarios is proposed as a solution. Three years of Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting Systems (ACARS) wind speed reports are used in conjunction with corresponding wind speed forecasts from the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) forecast product to construct an inhomogeneous Markov model quantifying forecast uncertainty characteristics along specific route through the national airspace system. The forecast uncertainty modeling methodology addresses previously unanswered questions regarding the regional uncertainty characteristics of the RUC model, and realizations of the model demonstrate a clear tendency of the RUC product to be positively biased along routes following the normal contours of the jet stream. A two-stage stochastic algorithm is then developed to calculate the fuel optimal stage one cruise speed given a required time of arrival at a destination waypoint and wind forecast uncertainty scenarios generated using the inhomogeneous Markov model. The algorithm utilizes a quadratic approximation of aircraft fuel flow rate as a function of cruising Mach number to quickly search for the fuel-minimum stage one cruise speed while keeping computational footprint small and ensuring RTA adherence. Compared to standard approaches to the problem utilizing large scale linear programming approximations, the algorithm performs significantly better from a computational complexity standpoint, providing solutions in fractional power time while maintaining computational tractability in on-board systems.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le développement et la conception de fonctions d’aide à la conduite pour les véhicules autonomes de niveau 3 et plus en milieu urbain ou péri urbain. Du fait d’un environnement plus complexe et de trajectoires possibles plus nombreuses et sinueuses, les algorithmes des véhicules autonomes développés pour l’autoroute ne sont pas adaptés pour le milieu urbain. L’objectif de la thèse est de mettre à disposition des méthodes et des réalisations pour permettre au véhicule autonome d’évoluer en milieu urbain. Cette thèse se focalise sur la proposition de solutions pour améliorer le guidage latéral des véhicules autonomes en milieu urbain à travers l’étude de la planification de trajectoire en situation complexe, l’analyse du comportement des usagers et l’amélioration du suivi de ces trajectoires complexes à faibles vitesses. Les solutions proposées doivent fonctionner en temps réel dans les calculateurs des prototypes pour pouvoir ensuite être appliquées sur route ouverte. L’apport de cette thèse est donc autant théorique que pratique.Après une synthèse des fonctions d’aide à la conduite présentes à bord des véhicules et une présentation des moyens d’essais mis à disposition pour la validation des algorithmes proposés, une analyse complète de la dynamique latérale est effectuée dans les domaines temporel et fréquentiel. Cette analyse permet alors la mise en place d’observateurs de la dynamique latérale pour estimer des signaux nécessaires aux fonctions de guidage latéral et dont les grandeurs ne sont pas toujours mesurables, fortement dégradées ou bruitées. La régulation latérale du véhicule autonome se base sur les conclusions apportées par l’analyse de cette dynamique pour proposer une solution de type multirégulateur capable de générer une consigne en angle volant pour suivre une trajectoire latérale quelle que soit la vitesse. La solution est validée tant en simulation que sur prototype pour plusieurs vitesses sur des trajectoires de changement de voie. La suite de la thèse s’intéresse à la génération d’une trajectoire en milieu urbain tenant compte non seulement de l’infrastructure complexe (intersection/rond-point) mais également des comportements des véhicules autour. C’est pourquoi, une analyse des véhicules de l’environnement est menée afin de déterminer leur comportement et leur trajectoire. Cette analyse est essentielle pour la méthode de génération de trajectoire développée dans cette thèse. Cette méthode, basée sur l’algorithme A* et enrichie pour respecter les contraintes géométriques et dynamiques du véhicule, se focalise d’abord dans un environnement statique complexe de type parking ou rond-point. Des points de passage sont intégrés à la méthode afin de générer des trajectoires conformes au code de la route et d’améliorer le temps de calcul. La méthode est ensuite adaptée pour un environnement dynamique où le véhicule est alors capable, sur une route à double sens de circulation, de dépasser un véhicule avec un véhicule arrivant en sens inverse. / This thesis is about the design of driving assistance systems for level 3 urban automated driving. Because of a more complex of the environment and a larger set of possible trajectories, the algorithms of highway automated driving are not adapted to urban environment. This thesis objective is to provide methods and algorithms to enable the vehicle to perform automated driving in urban scenarios, focusing on the vehicle lateral guidance and on the path planning. The proposed solutions operate in real-time on board of the automated vehicle prototypes. The contribution of this thesis is as theoretical as practical.After a synthesis of the driving assistance systems available on current cars and a presentation of the prototypes used for the validation of the algorithms developed in the thesis, a complete analysis of the vehicle lateral dynamics is carried out in time and frequency domains. This analysis enables the design of observers of the lateral dynamics in order not only to estimate signals required for the lateral guidance functions but also to increase reliability of available measurements. Based on the conclusions from the analysis of lateral dynamic, a multi-controller solution has been proposed. It enables the computation of a steering wheel input to follow a trajectory at any longitudinal speed. The solution is validated in simulation and on real road traffic for lane change scenarios. Another contribution consist in an analysis on the other vehicles of the environment is conducted in order to identify their behaviors and which maneuver there are performing. This analysis is essential for the path planning function developed in the thesis. This method, based on the A* algorithm and extended to respect geometric and dynamic constraints, firstly focuses on static environment such as a parking lot. Waypoints are added to the method in order to compute trajectories compatible with traffic regulation and improve the computation time. The method is then adapted for dynamic environment where, in the end, the vehicle is able to perform overtaking manoeuvers in a complex environment.

Occlusion is a frequently occuring challenge in vision systems for autonomous driving. The density of objects in the field-of-view of the vehicle may be so high that some objects are only visible intermittently. It is therefore beneficial to investigate ways to predict the paths of objects under occlusion. In this thesis, we investigate whether trajectory prediction methods can be used to solve the occlusion prediction problem. We investigate two different types of approaches, one based on motion models, and one based on machine learning models. Furthermore, we investigate whether these two approaches can be fused to produce an even more reliable model. We evaluate our models on a pedestrian trajectory prediction dataset, an autonomous driving dataset, and a subset of the autonomous driving dataset that only includes validation examples of occlusion. The comparison of our different approaches shows that pure motion model-based methods perform the worst out of the three. On the other hand, machine learning-based models perform better, yet they require additional computing resources for training. Finally, the fused method performs the best on both the driving dataset and the occlusion data. Our results also indicate that trajectory prediction methods, both motion model-based and learning-based ones, can indeed accurately predict the path of occluded objects up to at least 3 seconds in the autonomous driving scenario.

Les travaux présentés dans ce mémoire s’inscrivent dans le cadre duprojet PANsafer (Vers un Passage A Niveau plus sûr), lauréat de l’appel ANR-VTT2008. Ce projet est labellisé par les deux pôles de compétitivité i-Trans et Véhiculedu Futur. Le travail de la thèse est mené conjointement par le laboratoire IRTESSETde l’UTBM et le laboratoire LEOST de l’IFSTTAR.L’objectif de cette thèse est de développer un système de perception permettantl’interprétation de scénarios dans l’environnement d’un passage à niveau. Il s’agitd’évaluer des situations potentiellement dangereuses par l’analyse spatio-temporelledes objets présents autour du passage à niveau.Pour atteindre cet objectif, le travail est décomposé en trois étapes principales. Lapremière étape est consacrée à la mise en place d’une architecture spatiale des capteursvidéo permettant de couvrir de manière optimale l’environnement du passageà niveau. Cette étape est mise en oeuvre dans le cadre du développement d’unsimulateur d’aide à la sécurité aux passages à niveau en utilisant un système deperception multi-vues. Dans ce cadre, nous avons proposé une méthode d’optimisationpermettant de déterminer automatiquement la position et l’orientation descaméras par rapport à l’environnement à percevoir.La deuxième étape consisteà développer une méthode robuste de suivi d’objets enmouvement à partir d’une séquence d’images. Dans un premier temps, nous avonsproposé une technique permettant la détection et la séparation des objets. Le processusde suivi est ensuite mis en oeuvre par le calcul et la rectification du flotoptique grâce respectivement à un modèle gaussien et un modèle de filtre de Kalman.La dernière étape est destinée à l’analyse des trajectoires 2D reconstruites parl’étape précédente pour l’interprétation de scénarios. Cette analyse commence parune modélisation markovienne des trajectoires 2D. Un système de décision à basede théorie de l’évidence est ensuite proposé pour l’évaluation de scénarios, aprèsavoir modélisé les sources de danger.L’approche proposée a été testée et évaluée avec des données issues de campagnesexpérimentales effectuées sur site réel d’un passage à niveau mis à disposition parRFF. / The main objective of this thesis is to develop a system for monitoringthe close environment of a level crossing. It aims to develop a perception systemallowing the detection and the evaluation of dangerous situations around a levelcrossing.To achieve this goal, the overall problem of this work has been broken down intothree main stages. In the first stage, we propose a method for optimizing automaticallythe location of video sensors in order to cover optimally a level crossingenvironment. This stage addresses the problem of cameras positioning and orientationin order to view optimally monitored scenes.The second stage aims to implement a method for objects tracking within a surveillancezone. It consists first on developing robust algorithms for detecting and separatingmoving objects around level crossing. The second part of this stage consistsin performing object tracking using a Gaussian propagation optical flow based modeland Kalman filtering.On the basis of the previous steps, the last stage is concerned to present a newmodel to evaluate and recognize potential dangerous situations in a level crossingenvironment. This danger evaluation method is built using Hidden Markov Modeland credibility model.Finally, synthetics and real data are used to test the effectiveness and the robustnessof the proposed algorithms and the whole approach by considering various scenarioswithin several situations.This work is developed within the framework of PANsafer project (Towards a saferlevel crossing), supported by the ANR-VTT program (2008) of the French NationalAgency of Research. This project is also labelled by Pôles de compétitivité "i-Trans"and "Véhicule du Futur". All the work, presented in this thesis, has been conductedjointly within IRTES-SET laboratory from UTBM and LEOST laboratory fromIFSTTAR.

Decision-making is one of the key challenges blocking full autonomy of automated vehicles. In highway scenarios, automated vehicles are expected to be aware of their surroundings and make decisions by interacting with other road participants to drive safely and efficiently. In this thesis, one and multistep lookahead rollout algorithm and its variants are applied to address this problem. The results are evaluated using metrics related to safety and efficiency and compared with the DQN baseline. To improve the collision-avoidance performance of the ego-vehicle, I combine the idea of fortified rollout and rollout with multiple heuristics and propose the safe rollout method for the decision-making problem of automated vehicles. The experimental results show that the rollout agents have decent decision-making performance and can outperform the DQN baseline by collecting higher total reward. Experiments are also conducted to investigate the agent’s ability to adapt to varying behaviour of surrounding vehicles, as well as the impact of different horizon and reward function setting. The difference between deterministic and stochastic problems and its impact on the performance of different rollout agents is discussed. Two approaches to implement data-driven simulation are presented, and the feasibility of utilizing these data-driven simulator as control and decision support is investigated. / Beslutsfattande är en av de viktigaste utmaningarna som blockerar full autonomi för automatiserade fordon. I motorvägsscenarier, förväntas automatiserade fordon att vara medvetna om sin omgivning och fatta beslut genom att samspela med andra vägdeltagare för att köra säkert och effektivt. I den här avhandlingen tillämpas en och flerstegs lookahead-utrullningsalgoritm och dess varianter för att lösa detta problem. Resultaten utvärderas med hjälp av mått relaterade till säkerhet och effektivitet och jämförs med DQN-baslinjen. För att förbättra ego-fordonets kollisionsundvikande prestanda kombinerar jag idén om förstärkt utrullning och utrullning med flera heuristiker och föreslår den säkra utrullningsmetoden för beslutsfattande problem med automatiserade fordon. De experimentella resultaten visar att utrullningsagenterna har rimligt beslutsfattande prestanda och kan prestera bättre än DQN-baslinjen med högre total belöning. Experiment genomförs också för att undersöka agentens förmåga att anpassa sig till olika beteenden hos omgivande fordon, samt påverkan av olika horisont- och belöningsfunktionsinställningar. Skillnaden mellan deterministiska och stokastiska problem och dess inverkan på prestandan hos olika utrullningsagenter diskuteras. Två tillvägagångssätt för att implementera datadriven simulering presenteras, och möjligheten att använda dessa datadrivna simulatorer som styr- och beslutsstöd undersöks.

Cette thèse traite de la gestion du trafic aérien et plus précisément, de l’optimisation globale des plans de vol déposés par les compagnies aériennes sous contrainte du respect de la capacité de l’espace aérien. Une composante importante de ce travail concerne la gestion de l’incertitude entourant les trajectoires des aéronefs. Dans la première partie du travail, nous identifions les principales causes d’incertitude au niveau de la prédiction de trajectoires. Celle-ci est la composante essentielle à l’automatisation des systèmes de gestion du trafic aérien. Nous étudions donc le problème du réglage automatique et en-ligne des paramètres de la prédiction de trajectoires au cours de la phase de montée avec l’algorithme d’optimisation CMA-ES. La principale conclusion, corroborée par d’autres travaux de la littérature, implique que la prédiction de trajectoires des centres de contrôle n’est pas suffisamment précise aujourd’hui pour supporter l’automatisation complète des tâches critiques. Ainsi, un système d’optimisation centralisé de la gestion du traficaérien doit prendre en compte le facteur humain et l’incertitude de façon générale.Par conséquent, la seconde partie traite du développement des modèles et des algorithmes dans une perspective globale. De plus, nous décrivons un modèle stochastique qui capture les incertitudes sur les temps de passage sur des balises de survol pour chaque trajectoire. Ceci nous permet d’inférer l’incertitude engendrée sur l’occupation des secteurs de contrôle par les aéronefs à tout moment.Dans la troisième partie, nous formulons une variante du problème classique du Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management au cours de la phase tactique. L’intérêt est de renforcer les échanges d’information entre le gestionnaire du réseau et les contrôleurs aériens. Nous définissons donc un problème d’optimisation dont l’objectif est de minimiser conjointement les coûts de retard et de congestion tout en respectant les contraintes de séquencement au cours des phases de décollage et d’attérissage. Pour combattre le nombre de dimensions élevé de ce problème, nous choisissons un algorithme évolutionnaire multiobjectif avec une représentation indirecte du problème en se basant sur des ordonnanceurs gloutons. Enfin, nous étudions les performances et la robustesse de cette approche en utilisant le modèle stochastique défini précédemment. Ce travail est validé à l’aide de problèmes réels obtenus du Central Flow Management Unit en Europe, que l’on a aussi densifiés artificiellement. / In this thesis, we investigate the issue of optimizing the aircraft operators' demand with the airspace capacity by taking into account uncertainty in air traffic management. In the first part of the work, we identify the main causes of uncertainty of the trajectory prediction (TP), the core component underlying automation in ATM systems. We study the problem of online parameter-tuning of the TP during the climbing phase with the optimization algorithm CMA-ES. The main conclusion, corroborated by other works in the literature, is that ground TP is not sufficiently accurate nowadays to support fully automated safety-critical applications. Hence, with the current data sharing limitations, any centralized optimization system in Air Traffic Control should consider the human-in-the-loop factor, as well as other uncertainties. Consequently, in the second part of the thesis, we develop models and algorithms from a network global perspective and we describe a generic uncertainty model that captures flight trajectories uncertainties and infer their impact on the occupancy count of the Air Traffic Control sectors. This usual indicator quantifies coarsely the complexity managed by air traffic controllers in terms of number of flights. In the third part of the thesis, we formulate a variant of the Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management problem in the tactical phase for bridging the gap between the network manager and air traffic controllers. The optimization problem consists in minimizing jointly the cost of delays and the cost of congestion while meeting sequencing constraints. In order to cope with the high dimensionality of the problem, evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithms are used with an indirect representation and some greedy schedulers to optimize flight plans. An additional uncertainty model is added on top of the network model, allowing us to study the performances and the robustness of the proposed optimization algorithm when facing noisy context. We validate our approach on real-world and artificially densified instances obtained from the Central Flow Management Unit in Europe.

Different road users follow different behaviors and intentions in the trajectories that they traverse. Predicting the intent of these road users at intersections would not only help increase the comfort of drive in autonomous vehicles, but also help detect potential accidents. In this thesis, the research objective is to build models that predicts future positions of road users (pedestrians,cyclists and autonomous shuttles) by capturing behaviors endemic to different road users.  Firstly, a constant velocity state space model is used as a benchmark for intent prediction, with a fresh approach to estimate parameters from the data through the EM algorithm. Then, a neural network based LSTM sequence modeling architecture is used to better capture the dynamics of road user movement and their dependence on the spatial area. Inspired by the recent success of transformers and attention in text mining, we then propose a mechanism to capture the road users' social behavior amongst their neighbors. To achieve this, past trajectories of different road users are forward propagated through the LSTM network to obtain representative feature vectors for each road users' behaviour. These feature vectors are then passed through an attention-layer to obtain representations that incorporate information from other road users' feature vectors, which are in-turn used to predict future positions for every road user in the frame. It is seen that the attention based LSTM model slightly outperforms the plain LSTM models, while both substantially outperform the constant velocity model. A comparative qualitative analysis is performed to assess the behaviors that are captured/missed by the different models. The thesis concludes with a dissection of the behaviors captured by the attention module.