Efficient Route Planning for Real-Time Demand-Responsive Transit

Demand Responsive Transit (DRT) responds to the dynamic users’ requests without any fixed routes and timetablesand determines the stop and the start according to the demands. This study explores the optimization of dynamicvehicle scheduling and real-time route planning in urban public transportation systems, with a focus on busservices. It addresses the limitations of current shared mobility routing algorithms, which are primarily designedfor simpler, single origin/destination scenarios, and do not meet the complex demands of bus transit systems. Theresearch introduces an route planning algorithm designed to dynamically accommodate passenger travel needsand enable real-time route modifications. Unlike traditional methods, this algorithm leverages a queue-based,multi-objective heuristic A∗ approach, offering a solution to the inflexibility and limited coverage of suburbanbus routes. Also, this study conducts a comparative analysis of the proposed algorithm with solutions based onGenetic Algorithm (GA) and Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm (ACO), focusing on calculation time, routelength, passenger waiting time, boarding time, and detour rate. The findings demonstrate that the proposedalgorithmsignificantly enhances route planning speed, achieving an 80–100-fold increase in efficiency over existingmodels, thereby supporting the real-time demands of Demand-Responsive Transportation (DRT) systems. Thestudy concludes that this algorithm not only optimizes route planning in bus transit but also presents a scalablesolution for improving urban mobility.

Motion Planning for Autonomous Driving with Real Traffic Data Validation

Accurate trajectory prediction of surrounding road users is the fundamental input for motion planning,which enables safe autonomous driving on public roads.In this paper,a safe motion planning approach is proposed based on the deep learning-based trajectory prediction method.To begin with,a trajectory prediction model is established based on the graph neural network(GNN)that is trained utilizing the INTERACTION dataset.Then,the validated trajectory prediction model is used to predict the future trajectories of surrounding road users,including pedestrians and vehicles.In addition,a GNN prediction model-enabled motion planner is developed based on the model predictive control technique.Furthermore,two driving scenarios are extracted from the INTERACTION dataset to validate and evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed motion planning approach,i.e.,merging and roundabout scenarios.The results demonstrate that the proposed method can lower the risk and improve driving safety compared with the baseline method.

Safe Motion Planning and Control Framework for Automated Vehicles with Zonotopic TRMPC

Model mismatches can cause multi-dimensional uncertainties for the receding horizon control strategies of automated vehicles(AVs).The uncertainties may lead to potentially hazardous behaviors when the AV tracks ideal trajectories that are individually optimized by the AV's planning layer.To address this issue,this study proposes a safe motion planning and control(SMPAC)framework for AVs.For the control layer,a dynamic model including multi-dimensional uncertainties is established.A zonotopic tube-based robust model predictive control scheme is proposed to constrain the uncertain system in a bounded minimum robust positive invariant set.A flexible tube with varying cross-sections is constructed to reduce the controller conservatism.For the planning layer,a concept of safety sets,representing the geometric boundaries of the ego vehicle and obstacles under uncertainties,is proposed.The safety sets provide the basis for the subsequent evaluation and ranking of the generated trajectories.An efficient collision avoidance algorithm decides the desired trajectory through the intersection detection of the safety sets between the ego vehicle and obstacles.A numerical simulation and hardware-in-the-loop experiment validate the effectiveness and real-time performance of the SMPAC.The result of two driving scenarios indicates that the SMPAC can guarantee the safety of automated driving under multi-dimensional uncertainties.

Adaptive Space Expansion for Fast Motion Planning

The sampling process is very inefficient for sam-pling-based motion planning algorithms that excess random sam-ples are generated in the planning space.In this paper,we pro-pose an adaptive space expansion(ASE)approach which belongs to the informed sampling category to improve the sampling effi-ciency for quickly finding a feasible path.The ASE method enlarges the search space gradually and restrains the sampling process in a sequence of small hyper-ellipsoid ring subsets to avoid exploring the unnecessary space.Specifically,for a con-structed small hyper-ellipsoid ring subset,if the algorithm cannot find a feasible path in it,then the subset is expanded.Thus,the ASE method successively does space exploring and space expan-sion until the final path has been found.Besides,we present a particular construction method of the hyper-ellipsoid ring that uniform random samples can be directly generated in it.At last,we present a feasible motion planner BiASE and an asymptoti-cally optimal motion planner BiASE*using the bidirectional exploring method and the ASE strategy.Simulations demon-strate that the computation speed is much faster than that of the state-of-the-art algorithms.The source codes are available at https://github.com/shshlei/ompl.

Adaptive Resource Planning for AI Workloads with Variable Real-Time Tasks

AI(Artificial Intelligence)workloads are proliferating in modernreal-time systems.As the tasks of AI workloads fluctuate over time,resourceplanning policies used for traditional fixed real-time tasks should be reexamined.In particular,it is difficult to immediately handle changes inreal-time tasks without violating the deadline constraints.To cope with thissituation,this paper analyzes the task situations of AI workloads and findsthe following two observations.First,resource planning for AI workloadsis a complicated search problem that requires much time for optimization.Second,although the task set of an AI workload may change over time,thepossible combinations of the task sets are known in advance.Based on theseobservations,this paper proposes a new resource planning scheme for AIworkloads that supports the re-planning of resources.Instead of generatingresource plans on the fly,the proposed scheme pre-determines resourceplans for various combinations of tasks.Thus,in any case,the workload isimmediately executed according to the resource plan maintained.Specifically,the proposed scheme maintains an optimized CPU(Central Processing Unit)and memory resource plan using genetic algorithms and applies it as soonas the workload changes.The proposed scheme is implemented in the opensourcesimulator SimRTS for the validation of its effectiveness.Simulationexperiments show that the proposed scheme reduces the energy consumptionof CPU and memory by 45.5%on average without deadline misses.

Evolutionary Decision-Making and Planning for Autonomous Driving Based on Safe and Rational Exploration and Exploitation

Decision-making and motion planning are extremely important in autonomous driving to ensure safe driving in a real-world environment.This study proposes an online evolutionary decision-making and motion planning framework for autonomous driving based on a hybrid data-and model-driven method.First,a data-driven decision-making module based on deep reinforcement learning(DRL)is developed to pursue a rational driving performance as much as possible.Then,model predictive control(MPC)is employed to execute both longitudinal and lateral motion planning tasks.Multiple constraints are defined according to the vehicle’s physical limit to meet the driving task requirements.Finally,two principles of safety and rationality for the self-evolution of autonomous driving are proposed.A motion envelope is established and embedded into a rational exploration and exploitation scheme,which filters out unreasonable experiences by masking unsafe actions so as to collect high-quality training data for the DRL agent.Experiments with a high-fidelity vehicle model and MATLAB/Simulink co-simulation environment are conducted,and the results show that the proposed online-evolution framework is able to generate safer,more rational,and more efficient driving action in a real-world environment.

MPC-based Motion Planning and Control Enables Smarter and Safer Autonomous Marine Vehicles:Perspectives and a Tutorial Survey

Autonomous marine vehicles(AMVs)have received considerable attention in the past few decades,mainly because they play essential roles in broad marine applications such as environmental monitoring and resource exploration.Recent advances in the field of communication technologies,perception capability,computational power and advanced optimization algorithms have stimulated new interest in the development of AMVs.In order to deploy the constrained AMVs in the complex dynamic maritime environment,it is crucial to enhance the guidance and control capabilities through effective and practical planning,and control algorithms.Model predictive control(MPC)has been exceptionally successful in different fields due to its ability to systematically handle constraints while optimizing control performance.This paper aims to provide a review of recent progress in the context of motion planning and control for AMVs from the perceptive of MPC.Finally,future research trends and directions in this substantial research area of AMVs are highlighted.

A Reverse Path Planning Approach for Enhanced Performance of Multi-Degree-of-Freedom Industrial Manipulators

In the domain of autonomous industrial manipulators,precise positioning and appropriate posture selection in path planning are pivotal for tasks involving obstacle avoidance,such as handling,heat sealing,and stacking.While Multi-Degree-of-Freedom(MDOF)manipulators offer kinematic redundancy,aiding in the derivation of optimal inverse kinematic solutions to meet position and posture requisites,their path planning entails intricate multiobjective optimization,encompassing path,posture,and joint motion optimization.Achieving satisfactory results in practical scenarios remains challenging.In response,this study introduces a novel Reverse Path Planning(RPP)methodology tailored for industrial manipulators.The approach commences by conceptualizing the manipulator’s end-effector as an agent within a reinforcement learning(RL)framework,wherein the state space,action set,and reward function are precisely defined to expedite the search for an initial collision-free path.To enhance convergence speed,the Q-learning algorithm in RL is augmented with Dyna-Q.Additionally,we formulate the cylindrical bounding box of the manipulator based on its Denavit-Hartenberg(DH)parameters and propose a swift collision detection technique.Furthermore,the motion performance of the end-effector is refined through a bidirectional search,and joint weighting coefficients are introduced to mitigate motion in high-power joints.The efficacy of the proposed RPP methodology is rigorously examined through extensive simulations conducted on a six-degree-of-freedom(6-DOF)manipulator encountering two distinct obstacle configurations and target positions.Experimental results substantiate that the RPP method adeptly orchestrates the computation of the shortest collision-free path while adhering to specific posture constraints at the target point.Moreover,itminimizes both posture angle deviations and joint motion,showcasing its prowess in enhancing the operational performance of MDOF industrial manipulators.

A review of mobile robot motion planning methods:from classical motion planning workflows to reinforcement learning-based architectures

Motion planning is critical to realize the autonomous operation of mobile robots.As the complexity and randomness of robot application scenarios increase,the planning capability of the classical hierarchical motion planners is challenged.With the development of machine learning,the deep reinforcement learning(DRL)-based motion planner has gradually become a research hotspot due to its several advantageous feature.The DRL-based motion planner is model-free and does not rely on the prior structured map.Most importantly,the DRL-based motion planner achieves the unification of the global planner and the local planner.In this paper,we provide a systematic review of various motion planning methods.Firstly,we summarize the representative and state-of-the-art works for each submodule of the classical motion planning architecture and analyze their performance features.Then,we concentrate on summarizing reinforcement learning(RL)-based motion planning approaches,including motion planners combined with RL improvements,map-free RL-based motion planners,and multi-robot cooperative planning methods.Finally,we analyze the urgent challenges faced by these mainstream RLbased motion planners in detail,review some state-of-the-art works for these issues,and propose suggestions for future research.

Inverted Modelling:An Effective Way to Support Motion Planning of Legged Mobile Robots

This paper presents an effective way to support motion planning of legged mobile robots—Inverted Modelling,based on the equivalent metamorphic mechanism concept.The difference from the previous research is that we herein invert the equivalent parallel mechanism.Assuming the leg mechanisms are hybrid links,the body of robot being considered as fixed platform,and ground as moving platform.The motion performance is transformed and measured in the body frame.Terrain and joint limits are used as input parameters to the model,resulting in the representation which is independent of terrains and particular poses in Inverted Modelling.Hence,it can universally be applied to any kind of legged robots as global motion performance framework.Several performance measurements using Inverted Modelling are presented and used in motion performance evaluation.According to the requirements of actual work like motion continuity and stability,motion planning of legged robot can be achieved using different measurements on different terrains.Two cases studies present the simulations of quadruped and hexapod robots walking on rugged roads.The results verify the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed method.

On-line real-time path planning of mobile robots in dynamic uncertain environment

A new path planning method for mobile robots in globally unknown environment with moving obstacles is pre- sented. With an autoregressive (AR) model to predict the future positions of moving obstacles, and the predicted position taken as the next position of moving obstacles, a motion path in dynamic uncertain environment is planned by means of an on-line real-time path planning technique based on polar coordinates in which the desirable direction angle is taken into consideration as an optimization index. The effectiveness, feasibility, high stability, perfect performance of obstacle avoidance, real-time and optimization capability are demonstrated by simulation examples.

Real-time accurate hand path tracking and joint trajectory planning for industrial robots(Ⅰ)

Previously, researchers raised the accuracy for a robot′s hand to track a specified path in Car-tesian space mainly through increasing the number of knots on the path and the number of the path′s segments, which results in the heavier online computational burden for the robot controller. Aiming at overcoming this drawback, the authors propose a new kind of real-time accurate hand path tracking and joint trajectory planning method. Through selecting some extra knots on the specified hand path by a certain rule and introducing a sinusoidal function to the joint displacement equation of each segment, this method can greatly raise the path tracking accuracy of robot′s hand and does not change the number of the path′s segments. It also does not increase markedly the computational burden of robot controller. The result of simulation indicates that this method is very effective, and has important value in increasing the application of industrial robots.

Real-time accurate hand path tracking and joint trajectory planning for industrial robots(Ⅱ)

Previously, researchers raised the accuracy for a robot′s hand to track a specified path in Cartesian space mainly through increasing the number of knots on the path and the segments of the path. But, this method resulted in the heavier on line computational burden for the robot controller. In this paper, aiming at this drawback, the authors propose a new kind of real time accurate hand path tracking and joint trajectory planning method for robots. Through selecting some extra knots on the specified hand path by a certain rule, which enables the number of knots on each segment to increase from two to four, and through introducing a sinusoidal function and a cosinoidal function to the joint displacement equation of each segment, this method can raise the path tracking accuracy of robot′s hand greatly but does not increase the computational burden of robot controller markedly.

Parallel Planning:A New Motion Planning Framework for Autonomous Driving

Motion planning is one of the most significant technologies for autonomous driving. To make motion planning models able to learn from the environment and to deal with emergency situations, a new motion planning framework called as"parallel planning" is proposed in this paper. In order to generate sufficient and various training samples, artificial traffic scenes are firstly constructed based on the knowledge from the reality.A deep planning model which combines a convolutional neural network(CNN) with the Long Short-Term Memory module(LSTM) is developed to make planning decisions in an end-toend mode. This model can learn from both real and artificial traffic scenes and imitate the driving style of human drivers.Moreover, a parallel deep reinforcement learning approach is also presented to improve the robustness of planning model and reduce the error rate. To handle emergency situations, a hybrid generative model including a variational auto-encoder(VAE) and a generative adversarial network(GAN) is utilized to learn from virtual emergencies generated in artificial traffic scenes. While an autonomous vehicle is moving, the hybrid generative model generates multiple video clips in parallel, which correspond to different potential emergency scenarios. Simultaneously, the deep planning model makes planning decisions for both virtual and current real scenes. The final planning decision is determined by analysis of real observations. Leveraging the parallel planning approach, the planner is able to make rational decisions without heavy calculation burden when an emergency occurs.

Motion Planning Algorithms of Redundant Manipulators Based on Self-motion Manifolds

The current motion planning approaches for redundant manipulators mainly includes two categories： improved gradient-projection method and some other efficiency numerical methods. The former is excessively sensitive to parameters, which makes adjustment difficult; and the latter treats the motion planning as general task by ignoring the particularity, which has good universal property but reduces the solving speed for on-line real-time planning. In this paper, a novel stepwise solution based on self-motion manifold is proposed for motion planning of redundant manipulators, namely, the chief tasks and secondary tasks are implemented step by step. Firstly, the posture tracking of end-effector is achieved accurately by employing the non-redundant joint. Secondly, the end-effector is set to keep stationary. Finally, self-motion of manipulator is realized via additional work on the gradient of redundant joint displacement. To verify this solution, experiments of round obstacle avoiding are carried out via the planar 3 degree-of-~eedom manipulator. And the experimental results indicate that this motion planning algorithm can effectively achieve obstacle avoiding and posture tracking of the end-effector. Compared with traditional gradient projection method, this approach can accelerate the problem-solving process, and is more applicable to obstacle avoiding and other additional work in displacement level.

Motion Planning Based Coordinated Control for Hydraulic Excavators

Hydraulic excavator is one type of the most widely applied construction equipment for various applications mainly because of its versatility and mobility. Among the tasks performed by a hydraulic excavator, repeatable level digging or flat surface finishing may take a large percentage. Using automated functions to perform such repeatable and tedious jobs will not only greatly increase the overall productivity but more importantly also improve the operation safety. For the purpose of investigating the technology without loss of generality, this research is conducted to create a coordinate control method for the boom, arm and bucket cylinders on a hydraulic excavator to perform accurate and effective works. On the basis of the kinematic analysis of the excavator linkage system, the tip trajectory of the end-effector can be determined in terms of three hydraulic cylinders coordinated motion with a visualized method. The coordination of those hydraulic cylinders is realized by controlling three electro-hydraulic proportional valves coordinately. Therefore, the complex control algorithm of a hydraulic excavator can be simplified into coordinated motion control of three individual systems. This coordinate control algorithm was validated on a wheeled hydraulic excavator, and the validation results indicated that this developed control method could satisfactorily accomplish the auto-digging function for level digging or flat surface finishing.

Post-Impact Motion Planning and Tracking Control for Autonomous Vehicles

There is an increasing awareness of the need to reduce traffic accidents and fatality due to vehicle collision.Post-impact hazards can be more serious as the driver may fail to maintain effective control after collisions.To avoid subsequent crash events and to stabilize the vehicle,this paper proposes a post-impact motion planning and stability control method for autonomous vehicles.An enabling motion planning method is proposed for post-impact situations by combining the polynomial curve and artificial potential field while considering obstacle avoidance.A hierarchical controller that consists of an upper and a lower controller is then developed to track the planned motion.In the upper controller,a time-varying linear quadratic regulator is presented to calculate the desired generalized forces.In the lower controller,a nonlinear-optimization-based torque allocation algorithm is proposed to optimally coordinate the actuators to realize the desired generalized forces.The proposed scheme is verified under comprehensive driving scenarios through hardware-in-loop tests.

Rollover Prevention and Motion Planning for an Intelligent Heavy Truck

It is very necessary for an intelligent heavy truck to have the ability to prevent rollover independently.However,it was rarely considered in intelligent vehicle motion planning.To improve rollover stability,a motion planning strategy with autonomous anti rollover ability for an intelligent heavy truck is put forward in this paper.Considering the influence of unsprung mass in the front axle and the rear axle and the body roll stiffness on vehicle rollover stability,a rollover dynamics model is built for the intelligent heavy truck.From the model,a novel rollover index is derived to evaluate vehicle rollover risk accurately,and a model predictive control algorithm is applicated to design the motion planning strategy for the intelligent heavy truck,which integrates the vehicle rollover stability,the artificial potential field for the obstacle avoidance,the path tracking and vehicle dynamics constrains.Then,the optimal path is obtained to meet the requirements that the intelligent heavy truck can avoid obstacles and drive stably without rollover.In addition,three typical scenarios are designed to numerically simulate the dynamic performance of the intelligent heavy truck.The results show that the proposed motion planning strategy can avoid collisions and improve vehicle rollover stability effectively even under the worst driving scenarios.

Intermediary RRT*-PSO:A Multi-Directional Hybrid Fast Convergence Sampling-Based Path Planning Algorithm

Path planning is a prevalent process that helps mobile robots find the most efficient pathway from the starting position to the goal position to avoid collisions with obstacles.In this paper,we propose a novel path planning algorithm-Intermediary RRT*-PSO-by utilizing the exploring speed advantages of Rapidly exploring Random Trees and using its solution to feed to a metaheuristic-based optimizer,Particle swarm optimization(PSO),for fine-tuning and enhancement.In Phase 1,the start and goal trees are initialized at the starting and goal positions,respectively,and the intermediary tree is initialized at a random unexplored region of the search space.The trees were grown until one met the other and then merged and re-initialized in other unexplored regions.If the start and goal trees merge,the first solution is found and passed through a minimization process to reduce unnecessary nodes.Phase 2 begins by feeding the minimized solution from Phase 1 as the global best particle of PSO to optimize the path.After simulating two special benchmark configurations and six practice configurations with special cases,the results of the study concluded that the proposed method is capable of handling small to large,simple to complex continuous environments,whereas it was very tedious for the previous method to achieve.

Optimal Motion Planning for Differentially Flat Underactuated Mechanical Systems

Underactuated mechanical system has less independent inputs than the degrees of freedom（DOF） of the mechanism. The energy efficiency of this class of mechanical systems is an essential problem in practice. On the basis of the sufficient and necessary condition that concludes a single input nonlinear system is differentially flat, it is shown that the flat output of the single input underactuated mechanical system can be obtained by finding a smooth output function such that the relative degree of the system equals to the dimension of the state space. If the flat output of the underactuated system can be solved explicitly, and by constructing a smooth curve with satisfying given boundary conditions in fiat output space, an energy efficiency optimization method is proposed for the motion planning of the differentially flat underactuated mechanical systems. The inertia wheel pendulum is used to verify the proposed optimization method, and some numerical simulations show that the presented optimal motion planning method can efficaciously reduce the energy cost for given control tasks.