The focus of the paper is how to model autonomous behaviors of heterogeneous multi-agent systems such that it can be verified that they will always operate within predefined mission requirements and constraints. This is done by using formal methods with an abstraction of the behaviors modelling and model checking for the verification of them. Three case studies are presented to verify the decis...

In this paper, an original heuristic algorithm of empty vehicles management in Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) network is presented. The algorithm is used for the delivery of empty vehicles for waiting passengers; for balancing the distribution of empty vehicles within the network; for providing an empty space for vehicles approaching a station, etc. Each of these tasks involves a decision on the ...

The main objective of the proposed research is to improve various stability and handling qualities (such as Roll Over stability, Lane Change maneuver stability etc) of military, off road, unmanned multi-body ground vehicles within as wide operating envelope as possible under the presence of uncertainty in vehicle model parameters as well as under various sensor, actuator and component faults. A...

We are developing a novel autonomous mobile robotic system to emulate full 6 degree of freedom relative motion at high fidelity. An omni-directional base provides large 3-DOF motion with moderate precision, while a micron-class Stewart platform on top provides high precision, limited 6-DOF motion. This multi-vehicle robotic system is designed to accommodate multiple untethered vehicles simultan...

In the event of a catastrophic or large scale event, demand for Emergency Medical Service (EMS) vehicles will almost certainly overwhelm the available supply. In such cases, it is necessary for cities to request aid (in the form of added capacity) from neighboring municipalities in order to bring the affected region back to its day-to-day levels of operation. In particular, we consider a region...

The growing of the number of vehicles cause serious strains on road infrastructures. Traffic jams inevitably occur, wasting time and money for both cities and their drivers. To mitigate this problem, traffic simulation tools based on multiagent techniques can be used to quickly prototype potentially problematic scenarios to better understand their inherent causes. This work centers around the e...

In this paper we incorporate dipolar potential fields used for nonholonomic navigation into a novel potential function designed for multi – robot navigation. The derived navigation function is suitable for navigation of multiple nonholonomic vehicles. A properly designed discontinuous feedback control law is applied to steer the nonholonomic vehicles. The derived closed form control scheme prov...

Given the limited driving range of battery electric vehicles and lack of sufficient charging infrastructure, locating charging stations is an important decision problem to enable long-distance travels by battery electric vehicles. This paper considers an important political factor in such location problems: the equitable access to charging stations among geographical regions. We propose three t...

In an attempt to bridge the gap between the theoretical advances in multiagent decision making algorithms and their application in real world scenario, we present the Georgia testbed for autonomous control of vehicles (GaTAC). GaTAC provides a low-cost, opensource and flexible environment for realistically simulating and evaluating policies generated by multi-agent decision making algorithms in...

In this paper, we present a methodology based on multiple models and switching for real–time estimation of center of gravity (CG) position and rollover prevention in automotive vehicles. Based on a linear vehicle model in which the unknown parameters appear nonlinearly, we propose a novel sequential identification algorithm to determine the vehicle parameters rapidly in real time. The CG height...