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Green Energy and Technology Călin Iclodean Bogdan Ovidiu Varga Nicolae Cordoș Autonomous Vehicles for Public Transportation Green Energy and Technology Climate change, environmental impact and the limited natural resources urge scientific research and novel technical solutions. The monograph series Green Energy and Technology serves as a publishing platform for scientific and technological approaches to “green”—i.e. environmentally friendly and sustainable—technologies. While a focus lies on energy and power supply, it also covers “green” solutions in industrial engineering and engineering design. Green Energy and Tech- nology addresses researchers, advanced students, technical consultants as well as decision makers in industries and politics. Hence, the level of presentation spans from instructional to highly technical. **Indexed in Scopus**. **Indexed in Ei Compendex**. · · Ca˘lin Iclodean Bogdan Ovidiu Varga Nicolae Cordos , Autonomous Vehicles for Public Transportation Ca˘lin Iclodean Bogdan Ovidiu Varga Department of Automotive Engineering Department of Automotive Engineering and Transports and Transports Technical University of Cluj-Napoca Technical University of Cluj-Napoca Cluj-Napoca, Romania Cluj-Napoca, Romania Nicolae Cordos, Department of Automotive Engineering and Transports Technical University of Cluj-Napoca Cluj-Napoca, Romania ISSN 1865-3529 ISSN 1865-3537 (electronic) Green Energy and Technology ISBN 978-3-031-14677-0 ISBN 978-3-031-14678-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14678-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Foreword The unexamined life is not worth living. (Socrates) No reasonable publishing company will permit a book to appear in print without a preface. And even though most readers probably agree that there exists a kind of unavoidable necessity of such introductory texts, with almost equal unanimity they find them superfluous and uninteresting. They tend to spread an impression of bustling prolixity. Good prefaces are rarely written. A notable exception are the famous “Prefaces” of the literary genius (and co-founder of the London School of Economics) George Bernard Shaw, which are entertaining, delightful and full of prolific creativity: His legacy endures seventy years after his death. This will for sure not be the case for the humble preface to this book. However, there is at least one thing that G. B. S. and I have in common: Shaw also prefaced of what his friends wrote! As vehicle technology progresses into the third decade of the 21st century, many players, including US tech giants like Google, Waymo and Tesla are working on turning the dream of autonomous driving into reality. There is today no car manufac- turer who is not in the race to develop driverless technologies. Autonomous driving will become real. And autonomous vehicles are likely to catch on firstly and mainly in urban (“smart city”) areas for public transportation, the topic of this book. Developments in “Autonomous Driving Systems” have brought to the fore- front many new challenges in science and engineering. Continued progress involve a very diverse set of knowledge and technology, including localization, sensing, fusion, perception, decision making, actuation, real-time dynamic system (= vehicle) controls, client systems, deep learning, graphic/video processing and much more. It is the objective of this book to provide an overview to these technological advances and it is, without doubt, a challenge for both, lecturers and students to master all these topics. Since the subject touches upon many new areas, it brings even seasoned automotive engineers out of their comfort zone (including myself). v vi Foreword Autonomous driving is not about mastering one specific problem; it is more than “only” AI or deep learning: it’s about the complex integration of many technologies. Integration is the most important technology in autonomous driving. This is very well reflected in the present book, which allows to first grasp the basic concepts of each technology involved as well as their interaction/integration on a vehicle system level. The selection of topics has been made with great care. Great consideration has been given to the didactic point of view. The authors have tried to present the whole subject-matter in the simplest possible form. This book also satisfies the need of an “easy-to-read” reference book. Last, but not least: the author of these lines is convinced that the biggest barrier to a rapid development of this field is the very limited talent supply. This is undoubtedly due to several problems upon which we cannot elaborate here. However, teaching young students, and, most importantly, helping them to find the existential pleasures of engineering, is the only way forward to achieve new feats. May this book contribute to this process! Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Felix Pfister Business Development Manager IPG Automotive GmbH Karlsruhe, Germany Acknowledgements First of all, we are deeply grateful to IPG Automotive GmbH, D-76185 Karlsruhe, Bannwaldallee 60, (www.ipg-automotive.com) for their essential logistic support, availability and also for provision of their high-level professional expertise and technical support in the writing process of the book. Their advices definitively increase the scientific and applicative quality of book. Nevertheless, we would like to thank for their essential logistic support, availability and also for provision of their high-level professional expertise and technical support in the writing process of the book. At the end but not last, we would like to express our gratitude toward our families for their support, understanding and encouragement, which helped us permanently throughout the preparation of the book. Ca˘lin Iclodean Bogdan Ovidiu Varga Nicolae Cordos , vii Introduction The rapid evolution of autonomous driving in the field of information technologies and the automotive industry has made it possible to implement autonomous vehicles for public transport. Although the transport capacities with the small autonomous shuttle buses that are currently used are limited (maximum 15 people), the use of these transport units in large urban areas is beneficial for society. This book aims to present the current state of implementation of the autonomous technology on autonomous shuttle buses, with direct implications in their evolution in terms of technological progress and with direct links to the legal and social aspects of the public transportation system around the world. A critical aspect presented in the book is the legal framework of autonomous driving, which is extremely different throughout the world. As autonomous vehicle legislation has some shortcomings in the type-approval, registration, and placement into service of these vehicles on public roads, many countries have found ways to integrate them into testing programs, laying the groundwork for future legislative packages in the field of autonomous driving. The general term “autonomous vehicle” was used throughout the book to explain the constructive solutions and functional algorithms for autonomous shuttle buses. At the same time, the book presents the current technological solutions adopted by the main manufacturers of autonomous shuttle buses, resulting in an exhaustive overview of the major components. The operation modalities of these vehicles are presented, which in some countries have been implemented on less-traveled routes where they can travel at speeds of up to 25 km/h (and over in test mode), without hindering public traffic, university schools, industrial areas, airports, sports facilities etc. In other countries, they are used for pilot programs related to public transport, in others for postal transport, and others for scientific research. All these situations show that the first step in autonomous driving has been taken, and these means of transport exist among us. Public transport is one of the key issues that must be considered when developing a large metropolitan area, namely one of the criteria that define the quality of life in a metropolis, and which is an essential aspect strictly related to the social life of each inhabitant. A model for classifying the public transport based on vehicle dimensions ix x Introduction Fig. 1 Model for classifying the public transport and transport capacity, respectively operational characteristics are shown in Fig. 1 [1]. Public transportation will benefit from the introduction of intelligent vehicles for improve safety in urban areas, reduce the cost for the transportation, decrease congestion and improve the services for the user. Autonomous vehicle technology is not completely mature yet, but it has been attracting economic and industrial interests because those commercial vehicles include increasing levels of advanced driver- assisting systems year after year. The social implications of these huge revolution will change the perception of the transportation systems, increasing the lives quality. The autonomous vehicles will be equipped with many sensors, and most importantly, safety and reliability will be mandatory, but open requirements. The impact of autonomous vehicles on cities could result in the positive consequences and negative side effects. The autonomous driving will be safer and more accessible for those who cannot drive themselves or do not own a vehicle, following the mobility as a service paradigm. The autonomous vehicle will support public transit and will decrease housing development costs, for elimination of expensive underground garages and space on-ground parking [2]. There are a lot of direct, indirect, and random factors that influence public transport, but the most sensitive factor is human interaction in urban traffic. Drivers’ decisions are influenced by many factors and even if they are behind the wheel, driving is not always the only activity they focus on sometimes they do not maintain a constant distance, at the safety limit between vehicles, they do not always focus on the signs of traffic or the color of the traffic lights, do not follow the rules of traffic, and momentary decisions are sometimes influenced by their emotions. If we eliminate the human factor, traffic jams will be reduced, and road safety will increase. Typically, a driver spends up to an hour in traffic to get from work to home (or vice versa), whether he is using a privately owned vehicle or public transportation