Internet of Things and Data Analytics Handbook

35CONNECTED AND AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

LEVENT GUVENC, BILIN AKSUN GUVENC AND MUMIN TOLGA EMIRLER

Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

35.1 BRIEF HISTORY OF AUTOMATED AND CONNECTED DRIVING

Early work on autonomous vehicles can be traced back to work on autonomous operation of mobile robots motivated by the need to use such devices in unmanned space exploration. An autonomous mobile robot is a completely independent unit with its own power source, actuation system, an array of sensors to perceive the environment, and a computing system used for decision making. Research on mobile robotics has, thus, been inspirational for autonomous road vehicles and automated driving. However, it is not possible to directly jump from autonomous mobile robot technology to automated vehicles operating on roads. There are several reasons for this. First of all, a mobile robotic platform is not designed to operate on roads, especially on highways. Any vehicle that is operated on roads has to pass rigorous certification tests called homologation which no mobile robotic platform will be able to satisfy. Secondly, while mobile robotic platforms can stop and wait to assess the current situation, this is not possible in the case of an automated vehicle which cannot arbitrarily stop in the middle of the road, thus obstructing traffic. Early researchers working in the area of autonomous road vehicles have concentrated on low‐speed driving in closed test areas for this reason. This is a very significant ...