IEEE ITSC Workshop (Hybrid)

Global Advances and Future of Testbeds on

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

Online/Oniste Hybrid Mode (Details to be Updated)

Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technology is expected to transform the transportation paradigm and play a key component in the future smart city. The recent rapid development of CAV both in research and industry fields has proved its value and potential. A certain CAV technology's typical development may start from research labs, then go through computer simulation test, scaled road test, closed-environment road test, and open-environment road test to be verified and validated. Due to the enormous time and money costs of realistic road tests and government regulations, most CAV technologies' development faces high barriers from research to implementation. Fortunately, both public and private sectors notice the importance of the in-press need for CAV testbed. Many testbeds have been built and are being built recently across the entire world.

In light of this, this workshop aims at creating a global discussion platform for leading CAV testbed representatives across developing and developed countries, including the US, Europe, and Asia. Through this workshop, we hope to bridge the information gap among different testing methodologies and protocols and present unique features and services of various testbeds. To better verify and validate research outcomes, this workshop will also discuss the effective way to facilitate collaboration between researchers and testbeds, such as through remote visit platforms or remote vehicle on-loop simulation. As more open-road CAV tests are the trend in the near future, different government regulations and liability will be discussed, focusing on the role of CAV testbeds, e.g., designing testing standards and safety certification. This workshop will facilitate mutual learning and cooperation among attendees and benefit a large audience, including multi-disciplinary researchers, industry practitioners, and government agencies. This workshop can also inspire future CAV testbed developments and promote the forming of common community knowledge and industrial standard for CAV-related field experiment technologies.

The technical areas to be discussed include, but are not limited to the following:

Connected and automated vehicles
V2X communications
5G research and testing
Automated driving simulation and parameter development/validation
Methodologies for testing scenario generation
Hardware/vehicle in the loop simulation
Real-world case studies

Keywords

Connected and Automated Vehicle
V2X communications
Field Experiment
Vehicle Autonomous Systems Test
Field Data Analysis

Sponsor

- - IEEE ITSS TC – Emerging Transportation Technology Testing (ET3)
  - The World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTRS) SIG C1 – Traffic Theory and Modelling/Optimization and Traffic Flow
  - The National Institute for Congestion Reduction (NICR; National University Transportation Center)
  - The Sino-Sweden joint project of ICV-Safe: Testing safety of intelligent connected vehicles in open and mixed road environment

Invited Speakers

Peter Janevik - AstaZero - Sweden

Mr. Janevik is the CEO of AstaZero since 2017. AstaZero is a proving ground for the automated transportation system located near Gothenburg, Sweden. Mr. Janevik's previous background is mainly within development and testing of cars as well as development of test equipment. Mr. Janevik holds a Master of Science in Applied Mechanics and Automotive Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology.

Huizhao Tu - Tongji - China

Dr. Huizhao Tu received the B.Sc. degree in civil engineering and the M.Sc. degree in transportation engineering from Tongji University, China, the Ph.D. degree in Transport & Planning from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He is currently a full professor with College of Transportation Engineering, at Tongji University, China. He was with Department of Transport & Planning, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, where he was a Researcher from 2003 to 2008. His research interests include autonomous vehicles, transport risk assessment, smart transportation, data fusion. From 2003 to 2010, he participated in several Dutch projects on reliable traffic monitoring and emergency traffic management, and from 2010 till now, he was the PIs in several Chinese projects (e.g. NSFC, NSFC-NWO, MOST) in autonomous vehicles, transport risk assessment and smart transportation. Dr. Tu has published over 100 peer reviewed papers, two Shanghai Standards and three books. He got five Municipality Awards in Science and Technology Progressing. He is the vice Chairman of Shanghai Standards Committee in Intelligent Transport System, and the vice director of Institute for Urban Risk Management, Tongji University.

Sudhakar Nallamothu - FHWA - US

Sudhakar Nallamothu is currently a Project Manager for the Saxton Transportation Operations Laboratory at FHWA. He directs CARMA projects and others in the field of connected and automated vehicles. Previously, Mr. Nallamothu managed the ATMS/ATIS software development and was an applications manager for transportation. He provided software product management guidance, including management of the agile software development life cycle and research and development program.

Huei Peng - MCity - US

Huei Peng received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. He is now a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He currently serves as the Director of Mcity, which studies connected and autonomous vehicle technologies and promotes their deployment. His research interests include adaptive control and optimal control, with emphasis on their applications to vehicular and transportation systems. His current research focuses include design and control of electrified vehicles, and connected/automated vehicles.

In the last 10 years, he was involved in the design of several military and civilian concept vehicles, including FTTS, FMTV, Eaton/Fedex, and Super-HUMMWV—for both electric and hydraulic hybrid concepts. He served as the US Director of the DOE sponsored Clean Energy Research Center—Clean Vehicle Consortium, which supports more than 30 research projects related to the development of clean vehicles.

He has served as the PI or co-PI of more than 60 research projects, with a total funding of more than 60 million dollars. He has more than 300 technical publications, including 150 in referred journals and transactions and four books. His h-index is 84 according to the Google scholar analysis. The total number of citations to his work is more than 27,000. He believes in setting high expectation and helping students to exceed it by selecting innovative research topics with high impact. One of his proudest achievements is that more than half of his Ph.D. students have each published at least one paper cited more than 100 times.

Huei Peng has been an active member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is both an SAE fellow and an ASME Fellow.

John Easterling - SunTrax - US

Mr. Easterling currently serves as the District Traffic Operations Engineer for Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise, part of the Florida DOT. In his position, he is responsible for the Turnpike’s Traffic Safety and TSM&O Programs, including the planning, operations, and maintenance elements of ITS and the Traffic Management Centers. He is heavily involved in the development and operations of the Turnpike’s emerging technologies, including Connected Vehicle and the All Electronic Tolling (AET) conversion projects for the almost 500-mile Florida’s Turnpike System.

John has a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Miami, is a registered Professional Engineer, and a Professional Traffic Operations Engineer (PTOE). He has been with the Turnpike for 18 years, and previously worked as a transportation consultant for 10 years. John is a member of ITE, and a past President of ITS Florida, the state chapter of ITS America.

Zsolt Szalay - ZalaZONE - Hungary

Zsolt Szalay received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), Hungary, in 1995, the M.Sc. degree in business administration from Corvinus University, in 1997, and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from BME, in 2002. He is currently an Associate Professor and the Head of the Department of Automotive Technologies, Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He also acts as the Head of Research and Innovation with ZalaZONE Automotive Proving Ground, the unique Hungarian infrastructure for connected and automated vehicle testing. His research interests include advanced automotive technologies related to the testing and validation of highly automated and autonomous vehicles. He is a committed supporter of young talents from an early age as a Children’s University lecturer and via the BME Automated Drive Lab.

Schedule (9/19 Sunday)

8:00 – 8:05 am (EDT)

Welcome

Xiaobo Qu

8:05 – 10:05 am (EDT)

Technical Sessions

Moderator: Xin Wang

8:05 – 8:25 am (EDT)

Accelerating the Future of Connected Vehicle and Tolling Testing at Florida’s SunTrax

John Easterling

The presentation will describe Connected Vehicle (CV)-related testing efforts being performed at SunTrax, along with collaborative testing taking place involving co-existence with tolling technology. SunTrax is Florida’s premiere technology test track for all intelligent transportation solutions, connected and autonomous vehicles to support traffic safety innovations internationally. The presentation highlights the testing process and results from Cellular Vehicle to Everything (CV2X) testing that has recently been occurring at SunTrax. The presentation will describe the test plan, methods, goals related to technology reliability for CV2X inclusion in new solutions being developed and partnerships for Florida DOT. Further, the presentation will describe potential collaboration with private industry through the SunTrax program and will provide an update on recent CV application development and associated demonstration testing.

8:25 – 8:45 am (EDT)

Innovative Deployment Practices of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Road Testing in China

Huizhao Tu

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) is seeing a boom in investment, not only in China but around the world. Yet, CAVs are still under development. CAVs Road testing is encouraged to improve the safety, liability, cost, convenience of autonomous technology. Meanwhile, several fatal accidents involving CAVs have raised concerns about how the public sectors should regulate CAVs Road Testing. This talk will present the innovative deployment practices of CAVs Road testing in China, including:

Classification opening roads for CAVs testing.
Safety risk assessment of CAVs Road Testing.
Regulations for CAVs Road Testing.
New Infrastructure Plan like 5G in CAVs Road Testing.

8:45 – 9:05 am (EDT)

Preparing for the Future of Cooperative Driving Automation: An Examination of Use Cases and Testing

Sudhakar Nallamothu

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) conducts research on cooperative driving automation (CDA) with the goal of advancing transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) strategies. The CARMA Program, an ecosystem of open-source software and support services focused on enhancing digital infrastructure, enables the development, testing, and analysis of emerging CDA capabilities and TSMO use cases.

This presentation will provide an overview of the traffic incident management, basic travel, road weather management, and work zone use cases developed through the FHWA’s CARMA Program. Each use case framework examines actions that the entity responsible for TSMO activities will perform to achieve the TSMO strategy. Attendees will hear updates on completed and planned validation testing, and learn how to utilize FHWA’s research and contribute to the CARMA Ecosystem.

9:05 – 9:25 am (EDT)

Introduction of Mcity

Huei Peng

Mcity operates the world’s first purpose-built proving ground for testing the performance and safety of connected and automated vehicles and technologies under controlled and realistic conditions. Testing new technologies in a safe, controlled environment is essential before deploying automated vehicles on public streets, roads, and highways. The Mcity Test Facility has more than 18 acres of roads and traffic infrastructure. The full-scale outdoor laboratory simulates the broad range of complexities vehicles encounter in urban and suburban environments, and provides the connected infrastructure and operating system to serve as a smart city test bed. In this talk, we will give an overview of the test facility, as well as showing selected research and development activities done at this facility.

9:25 – 9:45 am (EDT)

Aspects of a modern proving ground for ADAS and CAV research and development

Peter Janevik

A proving ground for the development of ADAS and CAV systems differ substantially from the traditional proving grounds we all are used to. In this presentation, an overview of important aspects of such a proving ground will listed as well some examples of implementations from the AstaZero proving ground. Examples includes solutions for connectivity, traffic control and specialized test equipment for research and development of ADAS and CAV systems.

9:45 – 10:05 am (EDT)

ZalaZONE ecosystem for CCAM deployment

Zsolt Szalay

Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility require a disruptive validation approach regarding testing and validation solutions because classical vehicle dynamics testing will simply be not enough.

ZalaZONE is an autonomous, connected and electric vehicle testing environment and includes a dynamic platform, a special surface braking module, a high-speed handling course, a network of connecting roads of real world road quality, an urban or smart city environment created for the testing and validation of CAVs. With its capabilities, ZalaZONE is not just an automotive but also an ICT technology testing and demonstration center that will allow for the testing of new disruptive IT based technologies that appear in current and future transportation systems.

Public road testing is an additional layer beyond the proving ground. Legislative changes in Hungary offer a flexible regulatory environment within Europe for autonomous vehicle testing and this allows ZalaZONE to be a one stop hub for launching test in various environments, from live urban to the usage of a tri-national testbed road network in the Hungarian, Slovenian, Austrian triangle.

The 8+1 unique testing propositions of the facility extended by the mixed-reality scenario based testing (Scenario-in-the-Loop, SciL) methodology allow for the greatest variation of testing environments critical for CAVs. They fully exploit the recent advances in info-communication technologies, vehicle automation, and testing and validation requirements. The SciL methodology real-time connects physical and virtual testing with high correlation while completely blurs the sharp boundaries between them.

ZalaZONE has incorporated research and higher education into its organization and business models by accommodating R&D project work from partner universities in and outside Hungary. They promote multidisciplinary cooperation among the academic sphere and industrial partners. Together with ZalaZONE they support the dual education programs, dedicated BSc/BEng and MSc and post-graduate courses, with special focus on basic and advanced research in artificial intelligence, co-operative control, cyber security and driverless technologies.

This presentation will highlight ZalaZONE’s synergistic role in this new multi-layer autonomous vehicle testing and validation ecosystem.