Large-Scale Vehicle Platooning:Advances and Challenges in Scheduling and Planning Techniques

Through vehicle-to-vehicle(V2V)communication,autonomizing a vehicle platoon can significantly reduce the distance between vehicles,thereby reducing air resistance and improving road traffic efficiency.The gradual maturation of platoon control technology is enabling vehicle platoons to achieve basic driving functions,thereby permitting large-scale vehicle platoon scheduling and planning,which is essential for industrialized platoon applications and generates significant economic benefits.Scheduling and planning are required in many aspects of vehicle platoon operation;here,we outline the advantages and challenges of a number of the most important applications,including platoon formation scheduling,lane-change planning,passing traffic light scheduling,and vehicle resource allocation.This paper’s primary objective is to integrate current independent platoon scheduling and planning techniques into an integrated architecture to meet the demands of large-scale platoon applications.To this end,we first summarize the general techniques of vehicle platoon scheduling and planning,then list the primary scenarios for scheduling and planning technique application,and finally discuss current challenges and future development trends in platoon scheduling and planning.We hope that this paper can encourage related platoon researchers to conduct more systematic research and integrate multiple platoon scheduling and planning technologies and applications.

COMMUNITY BY DESIGN,BY THE PEOPLE:SOCIAL APPROACH TO DESIGNING AND PLANNING COHOUSING AND ECOVILLAGE COMMUNITIES

Synthesis Studio is an architectural,planning,and design consultancy practice,led by Barbora Baloghova and Gilo Holtzman,who work independently,developing each one’s interests and expertise while collaborating on various projects under the Synthesis Studio Brand.The studio’s mission is to excel in environmentally and socially sustainable building and planning practices,by research,design,and policy advocacy,and through collaboration with other professionals.In creating a community that works in harmony and reciprocity to its natural environment,we approach each site as an ecological system.Thus,the site layout and building design should perform in harmony with its surrounding environment and the needs of its future residents.For example,when planning and designing residential areas and buildings,we use research and implement the appropriate technologies in regard to waste management(grey water,composting,effluent)together with the form,location,orientation,shading,and social needs.Designing and planning places for people is a challenge.On the one hand,if prospective residents are not engaged in shaping their future residence,it means that places are created based on preconceived notions of how people ought to live,or how they should use a place or a space.On the other hand,working with many prospective residents means that an architect also needs to act as a facilitator,navigating through diverse thoughts and ideas and then translating them into physical form.The latter is achieved by prioritizing and understanding the importance of engaging with the community at various levels,from the group process of running meetings and decision-making to planning and design workshops.The overall aim is to demonstrate a range of planning and architectural solutions for progressive residential models both in rural and urban settings.The encouragement of a participatory process means that each participant/stakeholder becomes an important contributor to the planning and design process,and has some role in decision-making and is extremely important in achieving the best design for our immediate home and neighborhood environments.This process has been aptly named‘community by design and by the people’.

Problems and Solutions to Planning and Design of Green Building

Green building is one of the important issues for human beings to face ecological and environmental crisis and to examine its own behaviors. To realize sustainable development of architectural industry,main problems in planning and design of green building are analyzed,ideas and suggestions for planning and design of domestic green building are put forward,under the guidance of green building evaluation standards,and on the following two aspects,including urban planning and design driven by shortterm benefits and different design emphases due to unilateral understanding of green building.

Development and Planning of Small Towns in China:Speculation, Reassessment, and Prospect

Small town development has been one of the most remarkable features of urbanization in China: This paper systematically examines different definitions of small towns and critically assesses various interpretations of the functions performed by Chinese towns in national development. Prior to the- 1980s, small towns were enthusiastically portrayed as storage reservoirs that can dam the flux of the surplus rural labor force into large cities. Existing problems associated with the growth and planning of small towns have resulted in a sober reassessment of the role played by the towns. Despite the partial retreat of enthusiasm about the town-based urbanization strategy, small towns continue to flourish spontaneously in the grassroots level of the Chinese countryside. A new pattern of ’urbanizationfrom below’, motivated primarily by the growth of township and village enterprises and centeredaround small towns, is quickly taking shape in the country patticularly in the coastal extended metropolitan regions.

Urban & Rural Governance and Planning Reform:Annual Conference of China City Planning 2014 Successfully Held in Haikou

From Sept.13–15,the Annual Conference of China City Planning 2014 was held in Haikou City,Hainan Province.Around6,000 exper ts and scholars attended the conference and were engaged in vigorous discussions about'Urban&Rural Governance and Planning Reform.'Contents covered almost all fields of urban&rural planning and practice,addressing numerous

Environmental Planning of New Countryside with Dazhuang Village in Pingdingshan City as an Example

The paper introduced regulation and planning situation of Dazhuang Village which was the experiment construction project in Pindingshan City, and offered several proposals for the construction of the village's regulation and planning.

KSUTraffic: A Microscopic Traffic Simulator for Traffic Planning in Smart Cities

Simulation is a powerful tool for improving,evaluating and analyzing the performance of new and existing systems.Traffic simulators provide tools for studying transportation systems in smart cities as they describe the evolution of traffic to the highest level of detail.There are many types of traffic simulators that allow simulating traffic in modern cities.The most popular traffic simulation approach is the microscopic traffic simulation because of its ability to model traffic in a realistic manner.In many cities of Saudi Arabia,traffic management represents a major challenge as a result of expansion in traffic demands and increasing number of incidents.Unfortunately,employing simulation to provide effective traffic management for local scenarios in Saudi Arabia is limited to a number of commercial products in both public and private sectors.Commercial simulators are usually expensive,closed source and inflexible as they allow limited functionalities.In this project,we developed a local traffic simulator“KSUtraffic”for traffic modeling,planning and analysis with respect to different traffic control strategies and considerations.We modeled information specified by GIS and real traffic data.Furthermore,we designed experiments that manipulate simulation parameters and the underlying area.KSUTraffic visualizes traffic and provides statistical results on the simulated traffic which would help to improve traffic management and efficiency.

Power Tariff Reform and Energy Constraint in China

Power tariff reform and power restructuring should be coordinately advanced. In the period of the power tariff reform, attention should be fully given to possible demand growth, investment characteristics and environment pressure when taking transitional measures. In the stage, focal point of the reform is to establish a rational system of sales price to power network. Moreover, it is necessary to raise the electricity price for household consumption. The highly-centralized system of state-owned power enterprises is the root-cause of some basic problems in the power industry. The system would cause a great power overproduction, squeeze out private and foreign investment and constrain efficiency improvement. Effective energy strategy and security. China needs a state-class energy administration body and planning are a crux of dealing with crises of energy security. China needs a state-class energy administration body and should make massive research on energy economics.

A Review on Cable-driven Parallel Robots

Cable-driven parallel robots(CDPRs) are categorized as a type of parallel manipulators. In CDPRs, flexible cables are used to take the place of rigid links. The particular property of cables provides CDPRs several advantages, including larger workspaces, higher payload-to-weight ratio and lower manufacturing costs rather than rigid-link robots. In this paper, the history of the development of CDPRs is introduced and several successful latest application cases of CDPRs are presented. The theory development of CDPRs is introduced focusing on design, performance analysis and control theory. Research on CDPRs gains wide attention and is highly motivated by the modern engineering demand for large load capacity and workspace. A number of exciting advances in CDPRs are summarized in this paper since it is proposed in the 1980 s, which points to a fruitful future both in theory and application. In order to meet the increasing requirements of robot in different areas, future steps foresee more in-depth research and extension applications of CDPRs including intelligent control, composite materials, integrated and reconfigurable design.

THE URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

Under the push of economic reforms,the cities and towns in China are undergoing a swift development.Dynamics and functions of cities vary from ancient down to present time.Since the establishment of the People’s Republic,cities have experienced much oscillations in their development in accordance with the country’s political and economic ups and downs.The major problems facing the cities are:the lagging of infrastructures behind city development,the disjointment of urban planning with regional planning,and the transforming effect of spontaneous growth of market towns on urban-rural relationship.Through amplifying overall planning,modifying city size classification and enhancing the urban-rural linkage,a hierarchical urban system could be established.

Coordinated optimization for controlling short circuit current and multi-infeed DC interaction

Due to increased penetration of renewable energies,DC links and other emerging technologies,power system operation and planning have to cope with various uncertainties and risks.In order to solve the problems of exceeding short circuit current and multi-infeed DC interaction,a coordinated optimization method is presented in this paper.Firstly,a branch selection strategy is proposed by analyzing the sensitivity relationship between current limiting measures and the impedance matrix.Secondly,the impact of network structure changes on the multi-infeed DC system is derived.Then the coordinated optimization model is established,which considers the cost and effect of current limiting measures,the tightness of network structure and the voltage support capability of AC system to multiple DCs.Finally,the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II combining with the branch selection strategy,is used to find the Pareto optimal schemes.Case studies on a planning power system demonstrated the feasibility and speediness of this method.