Anye Zhou

Chaojie Wang, Siyuan Gong, Anye Zhou et al.

Emergent cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) strategies being proposed in the literature for platoon formation in the Connected Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) context mostly assume idealized fixed information flow topologies (IFTs) for the platoon, implying guaranteed vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications for the IFT assumed. Since CACC strategies entail continuous information broadcasting, communication failures can occur in congested CAV traffic networks, leading to a platoon's IFT varying dynamically. To enhance the performance of CACC strategies, this study proposes the idea of dynamically optimizing the IFT for CACC, labeled the CACC-OIFT strategy. Under CACC-OIFT, the vehicles in the platoon cooperatively determine in real-time which vehicles will dynamically deactivate or activate the "send" functionality of their V2V communication devices to generate IFTs that optimize the platoon performance in terms of string stability under the ambient traffic conditions. Given the adaptive Proportional-Derivative (PD) controller with a two-predecessor-following scheme, and the ambient traffic conditions and the platoon size just before the start of a time period, the IFT optimization model determines the optimal IFT that maximizes the expected string stability. The optimal IFT is deployed for that time period, and the adaptive PD controller continuously determines the car-following behaviors of the vehicles based on the unfolding degeneration scenario for each time instant within that period. The effectiveness of the proposed CACC-OIFT is validated through numerical experiments in NS-3 based on NGSIM field data. The results indicate that the proposed CACC-OIFT can significantly enhance the string stability of platoon control in an unreliable V2V communication context, outperforming CACCs with fixed IFTs or with passive adaptive schemes for IFT dynamics.

Siyuan Gong, Anye Zhou, Jian Wang et al.

Vehicle-to-vehicle communications can be unreliable as interference causes communication failures. Thereby, the information flow topology for a platoon of Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) can vary dynamically. This limits existing Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) strategies as most of them assume a fixed information flow topology (IFT). To address this problem, we introduce a CACC design that considers a dynamic information flow topology (CACC-DIFT) for CAV platoons. An adaptive Proportional-Derivative (PD) controller under a two-predecessor-following IFT is proposed to reduce the negative effects when communication failures occur. The PD controller parameters are determined to ensure the string stability of the platoon. Further, the designed controller also factors the performance of individual vehicles. Hence, when communication failure occurs, the system will switch to a certain type of CACC instead of degenerating to adaptive cruise control, which improves the control performance considerably. The effectiveness of the proposed CACC-DIFT is validated through numerical experiments based on NGSIM field data. Results indicate that the proposed CACC-DIFT design outperforms a CACC with a predetermined information flow topology.

Haowen Xu, Jinghui Yuan, Anye Zhou et al.

Leveraging recent advances in generative AI, multi-agent systems are increasingly being developed to enhance the functionality and efficiency of smart city applications. This paper explores the transformative potential of large language models (LLMs) and emerging Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technologies in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), paving the way for innovative solutions to address critical challenges in urban mobility. We begin by providing a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art in mobility data, ITS, and Connected Vehicles (CV) applications. Building on this review, we discuss the rationale behind RAG and examine the opportunities for integrating these Generative AI (GenAI) technologies into the smart mobility sector. We propose a conceptual framework aimed at developing multi-agent systems capable of intelligently and conversationally delivering smart mobility services to urban commuters, transportation operators, and decision-makers. Our approach seeks to foster an autonomous and intelligent approach that (a) promotes science-based advisory to reduce traffic congestion, accidents, and carbon emissions at multiple scales, (b) facilitates public education and engagement in participatory mobility management, and (c) automates specialized transportation management tasks and the development of critical ITS platforms, such as data analytics and interpretation, knowledge representation, and traffic simulations. By integrating LLM and RAG, our approach seeks to overcome the limitations of traditional rule-based multi-agent systems, which rely on fixed knowledge bases and limited reasoning capabilities. This integration paves the way for a more scalable, intuitive, and automated multi-agent paradigm, driving advancements in ITS and urban mobility.

Hao Zhou, Jorge Laval, Anye Zhou et al.

Self-driving technology companies and the research community are accelerating their pace to use machine learning longitudinal motion planning (mMP) for autonomous vehicles (AVs). This paper reviews the current state of the art in mMP, with an exclusive focus on its impact on traffic congestion. We identify the availability of congestion scenarios in current datasets, and summarize the required features for training mMP. For learning methods, we survey the major methods in both imitation learning and non-imitation learning. We also highlight the emerging technologies adopted by some leading AV companies, e.g. Tesla, Waymo, and Comma.ai. We find that: i) the AV industry has been mostly focusing on the long tail problem related to safety and overlooked the impact on traffic congestion, ii) the current public self-driving datasets have not included enough congestion scenarios, and mostly lack the necessary input features/output labels to train mMP, and iii) albeit reinforcement learning (RL) approach can integrate congestion mitigation into the learning goal, the major mMP method adopted by industry is still behavior cloning (BC), whose capability to learn a congestion-mitigating mMP remains to be seen. Based on the review, the study identifies the research gaps in current mMP development. Some suggestions towards congestion mitigation for future mMP studies are proposed: i) enrich data collection to facilitate the congestion learning, ii) incorporate non-imitation learning methods to combine traffic efficiency into a safety-oriented technical route, and iii) integrate domain knowledge from the traditional car following (CF) theory to improve the string stability of mMP.