Speed Control of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in Open and Mixed Road Environment for Safer Traffic Operating

Research Project, 2020 – 2023

This project is jointly funded by the Swedish Innovation Agency - Vinnova and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. The project will last for three years from Sep 2020 to Aug 2023. The leader of the Chalmers team is Dr. Jiaming Wu. Relevant partners include RISE Viktoria, Tongji University, WSP AB, and FellowBot. The total budget for this project is 1.5 million SEK including public funding and matchup funding. This project belongs to international major research collaboration between Sweden and China on research, development and innovation in the areas of life science, traffic safety and applied ICT.

The introduction of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles (ICVs) is accelerating with the forthcoming cellular V2X connectivity, artificial intelligence, and continuous evolving vehicle automation. Despite all the efforts, a critical question remains to be answered, that is what safety impacts are we expected of ICV in the mixed traffic, and how real-time speed control could be used for improving safety?

This project aims at investigating the safety performance of ICVs in mixed traffic and developing real-time speed control methods through infrastructure support, with the purpose of improving overall traffic safety and efficiency. This project will take advantage of the unique opportunities provided by collaborators, including traffic agencies, test site corporations, and OEMs to carry out the world's first tests of mixed traffic in public roads in controlled or semi-controlled settings. The plan is to focus on regulating or optimizing the speed of intelligent and connected vehicles as actuators in the traffic system to improve safety and operational conditions at crossings and merging. Expected effects to be validated including the improvement of safety, enhancement of traffic flow operations, and the decrease of CO2 due to smoother speed changes.