In this study, a traffic light recognition algorithm was implemented and validated for low-speed special purpose vehicles in an urban environment. Real-time image data using a camera and YOLO algorithm were applied. Two methods were presented to increase the accuracy of the traffic light recognition algorithm, and it was confirmed that the second method had the higher accuracy according to the traffic light type. In addition, it was confirmed that the optimal YOLO algorithm was YOLO v5m, which has over 98% mAP values and higher efficiency. In the future, it is thought that the traffic light recognition algorithm can be used as a dual system to secure the platform safety in the traffic information error of C-ITS.

Accurate state estimation is important for autonomous driving. However, the estimation error increases in situations that a lot of longitudinal slip occurs. Therefore, this paper presents a vehicle state estimation method using an Extended Kalman Filter. The filter estimates the states of the host vehicle robust to wheel slip. It utilizes the measurements of the four-wheel rotational speeds, longitudinal acceleration, yaw-rate, and steering wheel angle. Nonlinear measurement model is represented by Ackermann Model. The main advantage of this approach is the accurate estimation of yaw rate due to the measurement of the steering wheel angle. The proposed algorithm is verified in scenarios of autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane change (LC), lane keeping (LK) using an automated vehicle. The results show that the proposed algorithm guarantees accurate estimation in such scenarios.

Commercial use of autonomous vehicles is to come soon. So far most of responsibility of the accident is on the human driver with conventional vehicles whereas that will be on the car OEM and transportation related organizations with autonomous vehicles, which asks car OEM's and government to do vast study of car crash in various conditions. Test protocols need amendment and to be newly enacted to reflect new findings from the study aforementioned. Rigid stationary barrier and moving or stationary deformable barrier as well as car to car test which is same as actual accident can be utilized to simulate the crash happening on the road. Among those 3 test methods, rigid stationary barrier is most economic and has good repeatability. Limitation as well as advantage of the rigid stationary barrier is studied through comparison between car to car crash and oblique rigid barrier crash.

In the development of automated driving, interest in the interior parts of vehicle is to become more significant in terms of the occupant safety and comfort. This study proposed an optimal design of front seat according to the design requirements for frame stiffness and seat comfort. For the seat comfort, the appropriate foam thickness was obtained using the structural analysis under reclined occupant loadings. While the strength and stiffness analyses were performed to evaluate the seat frame structure. Topology optimization was carried out based on the simulation results and the derived optimal model and baseline seat design was updated. The conceptual seat design for the autonomous vehicle in this study showed that the model development process is appropriate for the design parameters in both frame stiffness and seat comfort.

This paper presents a stochastic model predictive control (SMPC) for stop maneuver of autonomous vehicles considering perception uncertainty of stopped vehicle. The vehicle longitudinal motion should achieve both driving comfortability and safety. The comfortable stop maneuver can be performed by mimicking acceleration profile of human driving pattern. In order to implement human-like stop motion, we propose a reference safe inter-distance and velocity model for the longitudinal control system. The SMPC is used to track the reference model which contains the position uncertainty of preceding vehicle as a chance constraint. We conduct simulation studies of deceleration scenarios against stopped vehicle in urban environment. The test results show that proposed SMPC can execute comfortable stop maneuver and guarantee safety simultaneously.

Recently, the government has been expanding the supply of hydrogen vehicles according to the roadmap for vitalizing the hydrogen economy, but is developing safety assessment and inspection technology for the relevant vehicles. This study analyzed the prevention of hydrogen bus accidents' economic effect that arises from the application and development of large-capacity CHSS oil pressure repetition-test assessment technology, hydrogen bus internal chamber pressure transmission and emission volume inspection technology, among various technologies capable of assessing the safety of a hydrogen bus fuel system. To this end, the contingent valuation method (CVM), one of the value evaluation methods of non-market goods, was applied to investigate users' willingness to pay for each inspection technology. The survey for users' willingness to pay was conducted by attaching posters to promote surveys on the internet and within buses to the entire public. As a result of the analysis, the average WTP of the hydrogen bus internal chamber pressure transmission volume inspection technology was 25.3 KRW, the average WTP of the hydrogen bus internal chamber pressure emission volume inspection technology was 18.6 KRW, and the average WTP of the large-capacity CHSS oil pressure repetition-test assessment technology was measured at 16.7 KRW. In addition, the costs and benefits of the introduction of the relevant inspection technology were defined through the interviewing of experts at related research institutions and businesses. As a result of conducting an economic analysis (4.5% discount rate) according to the development of each inspection technology, economic feasibility was seen in all assessment and inspection technologies. As much as the technology is indispensable for the safe use of hydrogen buses, it shows that investment in related technology is very necessary in the future. However, because it was decided that the relevant analysis will differ according to the distribution rate of hydrogen buses, further analysis following this future distribution rate of hydrogen buses is needed, and future users should be made clearly aware of the safety and environmental nature of the technology.

This paper describes an integrated control of torque vectoring and rear wheel steering using model predictive control. The control objective is to minimize the yaw rate and body side slip angle errors with chattering alleviation. The proposed model predictive controller is devised using a linear parameter-varying (LPV) vehicle model with real time estimation of the varying model parameters. The proposed controller has been investigated via computer simulations. In the simulation results, the performance of the proposed controller has been compared with uncontrolled cases. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can improve the lateral stability and handling performance.

Recently, the importance of simulation validation in a virtual environment for autonomous driving system validation is increasing. At the same time, interest in the advancement of the virtual driving environment is also increasing. To develop autonomous driving technology, a simulation environment similar to the real-world environment is needed. For this reason, not only the road model is configured in the virtual driving environment, but also the driving environment configuration that includes the surrounding environments -traffic, object, etc- is necessary. In this article, FMTC, which is a test bed for autonomous vehicles, is implemented in a virtual environment and advanced to form a virtual driving environment similar to that of real FMTC. In addition, the similarity of the virtual driving environment is verified through comparative analysis with the real FMTC.

This paper investigates the effects of age, gender, and situational factors on take-over performance in automated driving. The existing automated driving systems still consider a driver as a fallback-ready user who is receptive to take-over requests. Thus, we need to understand the impact of situations and human factors on take-over performance. 34 drivers drove on a simulated track, consisting of one baseline and four event scenarios. The data, including the brake reaction time and the standard deviation of lane position, and physiological data, including the heart rate and skin conductance, were collected. The analysis was performed using repeated-measures ANOVA. The results showed that there were significant age, gender, and situational differences in the takeover performance and mental workload. Findings from this study indicated that older drivers may face risks due to their degraded driving performance, and female drivers may have a negative experience on automated driving.

Occupant behaviors and body contact with vehicle interior parts are main injury mechanism in far-side collisions. In vehicle side impact accident where the crash accident occurs on the opposite side of the vehicle from the a particular occupant, it is exposed in terms of relatively larger lateral motion to interact with the opposite side of the vehicle structure. The challenge of minimizing motions of upper body and injury risk according to a direct contact is a primary occupant protection research. This study has performed a data analysis of real-world accident database extracted from the 2016~2020 CISS database and a parametric investigation of impact angles and occupant kinematics in far-side lateral and oblique impact simulations. A detailed data analysis was conducted to reveal the relationship among the accident and injury data. Database analysis and computational far-side impact results proposed the fundamental vehicle design for safety improvement in far-side collisions.

With the popularization of autonomous driving technology, safety has emerged as a more important criterion. However, there are no assessment protocol or methods for AES (Autonomous Emergency Steering). So, this study proposes AES assessment protocol and scenario corresponding to collision avoidance Car-to-Car scenario of Euro NCAP in order to prepare for obstacles that appear after the emergency steering of LV (Leading Vehicle) avoiding obstacles in front of. Autoware-based autonomous driving stack is developed to test and simulate scenario in CARLA. Using developed stack, it is confirmed that obstacle avoidance is successfully performed in CARLA, and the AES performance of VUT (Vehicle Under Test) is evaluated by applying the proposed assessment protocol and scenario.

In Korea, various studies on autonomous vehicles are being conducted with the aim of commercializing the fully autonomous driving (Lv.4) on major roads in 2027. Currently, the communication between non-autonomous vehicles and road users is made with gestures, eye contact, and verbal signals. In the case of autonomous vehicles in the future, autonomous vehicles should communicate instead of drivers. Recently, V2H communication technology (communication technology between autonomous vehicles and road users) is being developed. This study shows technology priorities using the KANO model in caution (warning) and traffic (concession) situations. As a result, a total of six attractive quality technologies were analyzed: technology to provide dark warning information in a display graphic; technology to provide dark warning information in a projection graphic; technology to provide light concession information in a display graphic; technology to provide dark concession information in a display graphic. In the future, it will investigate the preference of users in providing V2H information by road situation. It will be used as a V2H design priority.

Oblique car to car frontal impact is quite common on the road and series of studies have been done to realize this in the lab. At a certain angle of oblique crash a car (ego) is to travel at a speed of xkm/h to hit the other car(traffic) which is approaching to ego at a speed of ykm/h. Symmetry of the speed of two vehicles, x vs. y, is studied with respect to the impulse of the ego vehicle as well as occupant injury. If there is symmetry of speed of two vehicles, number of case studies needed to analyze the oblique frontal impact may decrease: ex. in the case of 30degree oblique crash 40km/h (ego) / 80km/h (traffic) will show the similar behavior as 80km/h (ego) / 40km/h (traffic) crash.

The purpose of this study is to explore ways of improving the motor vehicles safety certification system in preparation for the deployment of Lv.4 or higher autonomous vehicles. In order to effectively achieve the objectives of this study, theoretical and empirical research methodologies were employed, including literature review of prior research, government-published data, etc.; comparative research on legislative cases of other countries regarding motor vehicles safety certification; historical and legal research on domestic systems; legal analysis to explore approaches for improvement, etc. Some argue that the type approval system is needed in preparation for deploying autonomous vehicles, but there are several limitations in moving to the type approval system from the self-certification system currently adopted in Korea. First, there is a possibility that the system may be in conflict with the Korea-U.S. MOU regarding Foreign Motor Vehicles (1988) and the Korea-U.S. FTA (2011); second, there is a risk of undermining the cause of the self-certification system, which is the autonomy of manufacturers; third, the boundary between autonomous vehicles and non-autonomous vehicles is unclear; and fourth, the type approval system may hinder technological competitiveness. On the other hand, considering that the Korea-U.S. FTA and the UNECE IWVTA recognize exceptions to deal with road safety and risks to human health or the environment, and have a pre-certification system for some auto parts such as pressure-resistant containers, it can be said that there is room to introduce the type approval system for supplementation purposes. To improve the motor vehicles safety certification system while ensuring the safety of autonomous vehicles of Lv.4 or higher, the targets of type approval should be defined and the criteria, procedures, etc. for type approval should be established. At the same time, the consistency between motor vehicle-related laws and harmonization with international standards need to be considered.

The structural safety of hydrogen buses is being evaluated for the successful introduction of hydrogen buses. The crash test methodology, for example, side impact test procedure is being discussed for hydrogen bus structure safety with a compressed hydrogen storage system located under the bus floor. Thus this study describes a new experiment method for side impact test with compressed hydrogen storage system independently based on finite element analysis instead of side impact test using full hydrogen bus. A side crash procedure of conceptual compressed hydrogen storage structure was investigated and impact simulations were performed. The finite element models of hydrogen bus, simplified structures, fuel tank system and side impact moving barrier were set up and simulation results reported model performance and result comparison of three different simplified models. Computational results and research discussion proposed the fundamental test framework for safety assessment of the compressed hydrogen storage system.