Traffic surveillance is an important issue in Intelligent Transportation Systems(ITS). In this paper, we propose a novel surveillance system to detect and track vehicles using ubiquitously deployed magnetic sensors. That is, multiple magnetic sensors, mounted roadside and along lane boundary lines, are used to track various vehicles. Real-time vehicle detection data are reported from magnetic sensors, collected into data center via base stations, and processed to depict vehicle trajectories including vehicle position, timestamp, speed and type. We first define a vehicle trajectory tracking problem. We then propose a graph-based data association algorithm to track each detected vehicle, and design a related online algorithm framework respectively. We finally validate the performance via both experimental simulation and real-world road test. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed solution provides a cost-effective solution to capture the driving status of vehicles and on that basis form various traffic safety and efficiency applications.
The effectiveness of digital treatments can be measured by requiring patients to self-report their mental and physical state through mobile applications. However, self-reporting can be overwhelming and may cause patients to disengage from the intervention. In order to address this issue, we conduct a feasibility study to explore the impact of gamification on the cognitive burden of self-reporting. Our approach involves the creation of a system to assess cognitive burden through the analysis of photoplethysmography (PPG) signals obtained from a smartwatch. The system is built by collecting PPG data during both cognitively demanding tasks and periods of rest. The obtained data is utilized to train a machine learning model to detect cognitive load (CL). Subsequently, we create two versions of health surveys: a gamified version and a traditional version. Our aim is to estimate the cognitive load experienced by participants while completing these surveys using their mobile devices. We find that CL detector performance can be enhanced via pre-training on stress detection tasks and requires capturing of a minimum 30 seconds of PPG signal to work adequately. For 10 out of 13 participants, a personalized cognitive load detector can achieve an F1 score above 0.7. We find no difference between the gamified and non-gamified mobile surveys in terms of time spent in the state of high cognitive load but participants prefer the gamified version. The average time spent on each question is 5.5 for gamified survey vs 6 seconds for the non-gamified version.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are crucial for aerial mapping and general monitoring tasks. Recent progress in deep learning enabled automated semantic segmentation of imagery to facilitate the interpretation of large-scale complex environments. Commonly used supervised deep learning for segmentation relies on large amounts of pixel-wise labelled data, which is tedious and costly to annotate. The domain-specific visual appearance of aerial environments often prevents the usage of models pre-trained on a static dataset. To address this, we propose a novel general planning framework for UAVs to autonomously acquire informative training images for model re-training. We leverage multiple acquisition functions and fuse them into probabilistic terrain maps. Our framework combines the mapped acquisition function information into the UAV's planning objectives. In this way, the UAV adaptively acquires informative aerial images to be manually labelled for model re-training. Experimental results on real-world data and in a photorealistic simulation show that our framework maximises model performance and drastically reduces labelling efforts. Our map-based planners outperform state-of-the-art local planning.
Since the traffic administration at road intersections determines the capacity bottleneck of modern transportation systems, intelligent cooperative coordination for connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) has shown to be an effective solution. In this paper, we try to formulate a Bi-Level CAV intersection coordination framework, where coordinators from High and Low levels are tightly coupled. In the High-Level coordinator where vehicles from multiple roads are involved, we take various metrics including throughput, safety, fairness and comfort into consideration. Motivated by the time consuming space-time resource allocation framework in [1], we try to give a low complexity solution by transforming the complicated original problem into a sequential linear programming one. Based on the "feasible tunnels" (FT) generated from the High-Level coordinator, we then propose a rapid gradient-based trajectory optimization strategy in the Low-Level planner, to effectively avoid collisions beyond High-level considerations, such as the pedestrian or bicycles. Simulation results and laboratory experiments show that our proposed method outperforms existing strategies. Moreover, the most impressive advantage is that the proposed strategy can plan vehicle trajectory in milliseconds, which is promising in realworld deployments. A detailed description include the coordination framework and experiment demo could be found at the supplement materials, or online at //youtu.be/MuhjhKfNIOg.
This paper presents a two-step algorithm for online trajectory planning in indoor environments with unknown obstacles. In the first step, sampling-based path planning techniques such as the optimal Rapidly exploring Random Tree (RRT*) algorithm and the Line-of-Sight (LOS) algorithm are employed to generate a collision-free path consisting of multiple waypoints. Then, in the second step, constrained quadratic programming is utilized to compute a smooth trajectory that passes through all computed waypoints. The main contribution of this work is the development of a flexible trajectory planning framework that can detect changes in the environment, such as new obstacles, and compute alternative trajectories in real time. The proposed algorithm actively considers all changes in the environment and performs the replanning process only on waypoints that are occupied by new obstacles. This helps to reduce the computation time and realize the proposed approach in real time. The feasibility of the proposed algorithm is evaluated using the Intel Aero Ready-to-Fly (RTF) quadcopter in simulation and in a real-world experiment.
We consider the task of evaluating policies of algorithmic resource allocation through randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Such policies are tasked with optimizing the utilization of limited intervention resources, with the goal of maximizing the benefits derived. Evaluation of such allocation policies through RCTs proves difficult, notwithstanding the scale of the trial, because the individuals' outcomes are inextricably interlinked through resource constraints controlling the policy decisions. Our key contribution is to present a new estimator leveraging our proposed novel concept, that involves retrospective reshuffling of participants across experimental arms at the end of an RCT. We identify conditions under which such reassignments are permissible and can be leveraged to construct counterfactual trials, whose outcomes can be accurately ascertained, for free. We prove theoretically that such an estimator is more accurate than common estimators based on sample means -- we show that it returns an unbiased estimate and simultaneously reduces variance. We demonstrate the value of our approach through empirical experiments on synthetic, semi-synthetic as well as real case study data and show improved estimation accuracy across the board.
Multi-agent motion planning (MAMP) is a critical challenge in applications such as connected autonomous vehicles and multi-robot systems. In this paper, we propose a space-time conflict resolution approach for MAMP. We formulate the problem using a novel, flexible sphere-based discretization for trajectories. Our approach leverages a depth-first conflict search strategy to provide the scalability of decoupled approaches while maintaining the computational guarantees of coupled approaches. We compose procedures for evading discretization error and adhering to kinematic constraints in generated solutions. Theoretically, we prove the continuous-time feasibility and formulation-space completeness of our algorithm. Experimentally, we demonstrate that our algorithm matches the performance of the current state of the art with respect to both runtime and solution quality, while expanding upon the abilities of current work through accommodation for both static and dynamic obstacles. We evaluate our algorithm in various unsignalized traffic intersection scenarios using CARLA, an open-source vehicle simulator. Results show significant success rate improvement in spatially constrained settings, involving both connected and non-connected vehicles. Furthermore, we maintain a reasonable suboptimality ratio that scales well among increasingly complex scenarios.
Recently, it has become popular to deploy sensors such as LiDARs on the roadside to monitor the passing traffic and assist autonomous vehicle perception. Unlike autonomous vehicle systems, roadside sensors are usually affiliated with different subsystems and lack synchronization both in time and space. Calibration is a key technology which allows the central server to fuse the data generated by different location infrastructures, which can deliver improve the sensing range and detection robustness. Unfortunately, existing calibration algorithms often assume that the LiDARs are significantly overlapped or that the temporal calibration is already achieved. Since these assumptions do not always hold in the real world, the calibration results from the existing algorithms are often unsatisfactory and always need human involvement, which brings high labor costs. In this paper, we propose TrajMatch -- the first system that can automatically calibrate for roadside LiDARs in both time and space. The main idea is to automatically calibrate the sensors based on the result of the detection/tracking task instead of extracting special features. More deeply, we propose a mechanism for evaluating calibration parameters that is consistent with our algorithm, and we demonstrate the effectiveness of this scheme experimentally, which can also be used to guide parameter iterations for multiple calibration. Finally, to evaluate the performance of TrajMatch , we collect two dataset, one simulated dataset LiDARnet-sim 1.0 and a real-world dataset. Experiment results show that TrajMatch can achieve a spatial calibration error of less than 10cm and a temporal calibration error of less than 1.5ms.
Autonomous operation of UAVs in a closed environment requires precise and reliable pose estimate that can stabilize the UAV without using external localization systems such as GNSS. In this work, we are concerned with estimating the pose from laser scans generated by an inexpensive and lightweight LIDAR. We propose a localization system for lightweight (under 200g) LIDAR sensors with high reliability in arbitrary environments, where other methods fail. The general nature of the proposed method allows deployment in wide array of applications. Moreover, seamless transitioning between different kinds of environments is possible. The advantage of LIDAR localization is that it is robust to poor illumination, which is often challenging for camera-based solutions in dark indoor environments and in the case of the transition between indoor and outdoor environment. Our approach allows executing tasks in poorly-illuminated indoor locations such as historic buildings and warehouses, as well as in the tight outdoor environment, such as forest, where vision-based approaches fail due to large contrast of the scene, and where large well-equipped UAVs cannot be deployed due to the constrained space.
Integration of Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO) methods into a modular control system designed for deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and teams of cooperating UAVs in real-world conditions are presented in this paper. Reliability analysis and fair performance comparison of several methods integrated into a control pipeline for achieving full autonomy in real conditions is provided. Although most VIO algorithms achieve excellent localization precision and negligible drift on artificially created datasets, the aspects of reliability in non-ideal situations, robustness to degraded sensor data, and the effects of external disturbances and feedback control coupling are not well studied. These imperfections, which are inherently present in cases of real-world deployment of UAVs, negatively affect the ability of the most used VIO approaches to output a sensible pose estimation. We identify the conditions that are critical for a reliable flight under VIO localization and propose workarounds and compensations for situations in which such conditions cannot be achieved. The performance of the UAV system with integrated VIO methods is quantitatively analyzed w.r.t. RTK ground truth and the ability to provide reliable pose estimation for the feedback control is demonstrated onboard a UAV that is tracking dynamic trajectories under challenging illumination.
Recent advances in sensor and mobile devices have enabled an unprecedented increase in the availability and collection of urban trajectory data, thus increasing the demand for more efficient ways to manage and analyze the data being produced. In this survey, we comprehensively review recent research trends in trajectory data management, ranging from trajectory pre-processing, storage, common trajectory analytic tools, such as querying spatial-only and spatial-textual trajectory data, and trajectory clustering. We also explore four closely related analytical tasks commonly used with trajectory data in interactive or real-time processing. Deep trajectory learning is also reviewed for the first time. Finally, we outline the essential qualities that a trajectory management system should possess in order to maximize flexibility.