Autonomous Vehicle Interactive Dynamics and Morphing with Mobility & Maneuver Self-Learning-and-Improvement

Project began mid-2020 and was completed Q1 2022.

Dynamic couplings in physical systems, concurrency and lack of coordination of cyber and physical processes between cyber-physical systems of autonomous ground vehicles require new approaches to de-coupling and establishing interactive dynamics of the systems. An autonomous vehicle should understand the couplings between both its systems and system components for two main reasons:

1. Not to learn and not to make any decisions from its dynamics, mobility and maneuver when it is degraded by coupled systems of the vehicle, and
2. Be capable to de-couple the systems and establish their interactive dynamics to facilitate and enhance autonomous mobility and maneuver.

These two challenges require extending autonomy and intelligence from the vehicle level to the level of vehicle physical and cyber-physical systems. This makes the overall purpose of this project.

In the project, we shall study two types of dynamical couplings for the purpose of their de-coupling and establishing autonomous interactive dynamics among the systems and, thus, for improving autonomous mobility and maneuver:

1. Couplings of the physical components of vehicle cyber-physical systems, e.g., couplings of the driveline and chassis and their physical sub-systems
2. Couplings of physical systems and information processes in hybrid and electric vehicles, i.e., (i) couplings between physical and cyber components of the vehicle systems, and (ii) couplings between the vehicle autonomy system and vehicle cyber-physical systems.

#1.A85