2021 UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Programme All Hands Meeting
UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) Hub held the 2021 All Hands Meeting (AHM) from 14-16 September 2021 as a virtual meeting. Hameed submitted a pre-recorded video presentation of his PhD research, Optimising the design of highway infrastructure systems for Connected Autonomous Vehicles, for the meeting (https://vimeo.com/showcase/8775391/video/588391329).
The meeting brought together an array of professionals from around the UK from industry, academia and other institutions, to network and brainstorm on the challenges to the deployment of autonomous systems. It was enlightening to learn of some of the ethical and social issues related to autonomous vehicles. I also used this as a platform to present the civil engineering infrastructure perspective of CAVs. The discussions took place in virtual breakout group sessions, which increased participation of the delegates.
Presented by Hameed Jehanfo, PhD Researcher, University of Southampton.
The current designs standards rely very heavily on the qualities of a human driver, and so substituting this driver for an autonomous driving vehicle system will fundamentally change the current approach to highway designs. The physical highway infrastructure can be modified in a number of ways to make them suitable for the introduction of autonomous vehicles. For example, lanes can be narrower to take advantage of the highly accurate wheel tracking of autonomous vehicles. This will reduce construction cost, but will require more frequent pavement maintenance due to higher concentration of wheel load across a narrower lane section. Another option is to install wider lanes so the vehicle wheel is programmed to wander over a wider pavement area. This will prolong pavement life, although the initial construction cost of the wider lanes would be higher. This talk outlines the methodology that can be used to determine the optimal balance of infrastructure systems over the design life a road incorporating autonomous vehicles.