Project COOP

IVT-Seminar

Date, time and location

11 July 2017, 10:00-11:00
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5, 8093 Zurich
HIL F 36.1 ETH Zurich, Campus Hoenggerberg

Programme

Professor Margarita Martínez Díaz, University of A Coruña, Spain:
Project COOP: Cooperative freeway driving strategies in a mixed environment – driverless and traditional vehicles

No registration needed. No registration fee.

Abstract

Research on driverless cars is generally vehicle centric. The technological development achieved is impressive, and the potential and attractiveness of the concept are huge. However, autonomous cars are being designed with too conservative parameters (headway, acceleration, aggressiveness, gap acceptance, lane changing and merging thresholds, etc.), which would affect negatively the traffic system performance. In the same way, decisions taken by individual vehicles on their own would not lead to the global efficiency of the system. In this context, cooperative driving appears as a solution. More particularly, it would allow creating dense vehicle platoons with very small spacings, which could lead to an increase in capacity if they were properly managed. The final objective of the COOP project is to define a set of strategies and guidelines for the cooperative management of driverless cars in a mixed environment with traditional vehicles. Platoon lane selection, traveling speed, composition (cars/trucks), mixed or dedicated strategies, or their effect at junctions are topics to be analyzed in the present project.

Presenter’s bio

Margarita Martínez Díaz is M. Eng. Civil Engineering and MSc. Research in Civil Engineering from the University of A Coruña (Spain). After finishing her studies, Ms. Martínez started working on road design, construction and urbanization for an international company. Eight years later, she decided to focus her activity on the university, where she currently combines teaching and research. Simultaneously, she works on her doctoral thesis in the field of data fusion for the improvement of freeway information systems. This thesis is codirected by Prof. Francesc Soriguera (Polytechnic University of Catalonia) and Prof. Ignacio Pérez (University of A Coruña). One of her works has already been published in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. Ms. Martínez regularly visits the Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal (Germany), where she teaches an optional subject in the area of road transport.