Identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles

Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2015.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Abraham, Zianga (Zianga Malisha)
Other Authors: Karl Iagnemma.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98951
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author Abraham, Zianga (Zianga Malisha)
author2 Karl Iagnemma.
author_facet Karl Iagnemma.
Abraham, Zianga (Zianga Malisha)
author_sort Abraham, Zianga (Zianga Malisha)
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description Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2015.
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spelling mit-1721.1/989512019-04-11T12:54:21Z Identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles Abraham, Zianga (Zianga Malisha) Karl Iagnemma. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Mechanical Engineering. Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2015. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 59-61). This thesis investigates the effect that the implementation of autonomous vehicles may have on the vehicle fleet through the design of a simulator in MATLAB that models human-driven and autonomous vehicles. The manned vehicle model, consisting of aggressive, normal, and cautious drivers, utilizes many of the same functions as the autonomous vehicle model. However, one characteristic difference between the two models is the reaction time. The manned vehicles have a reaction time of 0.8 seconds, while the autonomous vehicles essentially have a negligible reaction time. The two vehicle models were integrated into one simulator in order to identify the points at which society would begin to benefit from having autonomous vehicles on the roadways. Two cost functions, traffic flow rate and safety, based on the number of collisions, were optimized with respect to two parameters, fraction of autonomous vehicles and traffic density. From the plotted data, the critical points could be identified. The results suggest that once the autonomous vehicles comprise more than 40% of the vehicle fleet, an increase in the traffic flow rate will be observed. The results also suggest that once the traffic density exceeds 10 vehicles per 1280 M² , the traffic flow rate begins to decrease. The number of collisions increases with traffic density, and an exponential growth can be recognized, indicating a critical point. Unexpectedly, the number of collisions slightly increases with the fraction of autonomous vehicles. The increase in the number of collisions is possibly due to the accelerated speeds of the autonomous vehicles and a platooning effect. A significant amount of variation was detected within each data set implying that another measure of safety may be useful. by Zianga Abraham. S.B. 2015-09-29T18:55:05Z 2015-09-29T18:55:05Z 2015 2015 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98951 921147434 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 61 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Mechanical Engineering.
Abraham, Zianga (Zianga Malisha)
Identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles
title Identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles
title_full Identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles
title_fullStr Identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles
title_full_unstemmed Identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles
title_short Identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles
title_sort identifying the optimal highway driving conditions for the integration of manned and autonomous vehicles
topic Mechanical Engineering.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98951
work_keys_str_mv AT abrahamziangaziangamalisha identifyingtheoptimalhighwaydrivingconditionsfortheintegrationofmannedandautonomousvehicles