Using Intelligent Trac Lights to reduce vehicle emissions

Adriana Szekeres
Department of Computer Science University Politehnica of Bucharest

Scientic coordinators: Prof. Valentin Cristea, University Politehnica of Bucharest Ing. Ciprian Dobre, University Politehnica of Bucharest

July 2009

I would like to dedicate this thesis to my loving parents, Antonica and Adrian, and my supportive sister, Anca ...

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Prof. Liviu Iftode, who took the time to share his ideas and enthusiasm with all VANET team members from University Politehnica of Bucharest. I would like to thank as well Prof. Valentin Cristea for giving me the chance to work on this project. Also, I would like to thank Ing. Ciprian Dobre for his guidance and disponibility.

Abstract

Cars with petrol driven internal combustion engines produce toxic waste products that pollute the air, causing damage to our health, animal life and the environment. Road transportation is responsible for the emission of hydrocarbons, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, metals and a variety of organic compounds into the environment. Sunlight acts on some of these to produce ground level ozone. The chemicals from the polluted air plus ozone are toxic and each has a specic eect upon humans and the environment. They cause respiratory diseases, irritation to the eyes, and aggravate existing breathing problems, such as asthma in children and other medical conditions in the elderly. Carbon monoxide causes drowsiness and poor mental alertness. Other eects can be achieved, such as acid rain, which damages crops and trees, and erodes the buildings. Cars are also a major source of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Methods to reduce car emissions are beeing constantly researched. One possible solution to reduce car emissions is to use Intelligent Transportation Systems. Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), designed to bring intelligence into mobility, are systems that use communication and information processing to improve eciency and safety in transportation systems. The main concern of ITS is vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-roadside communication, through wireless technologies, and the usage of the gathered information. This thesis is a step in implementing a system, based on the ITS, capable of guiding the drivers to achieve reduced vehicle emissions. Imagine a car coming across an intersection and the trac lights

current color is green. The driver could accelerate hoping that she/he will be able to pass or she/he could bring her/his car to a safe speed, risking missing the green. The system developed through this thesis will be able nd the best decision to be taken in this situation, concerning the cars emissions.

Contents
List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction 2 State of the Art 2.1 Mechanical physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Basic car diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Engine torque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gears and wheel torque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Computing acceleration and velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . Fourth-order Runge-Kutta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix 1 3 3 4 6 7 10 12 13 16 18 19 20 20 21 21 22 23 24

Car emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intelligent Transport Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Travolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 Simulation Environment - VNSim 3.1 3.2 VNSim System Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mobility module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 3.3 3.4 Implementation details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trac data dissemination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fuel Consumption and Pollutant Emissions Estimation . . . . . .

CONTENTS

4 Design and Implementation 4.1 4.2 System design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementation details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 The standalone application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1.1 4.2.2 The algorithm applied in case of green lights . . . 4.2.1.2 The algorithm applied in case of red lights . . . . Integration with VNSim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28 28 30 30 31 34 35 38 38 42 47 52 55

5 Experimental Results and Analysis 5.1 5.2 5.3 Preliminary experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Experimental results of the decision algorithm - green trac lights Experimental results of the decision algorithm - red trac lights .

6 Conclusions References

vi

List of Figures
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Force balance on a car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A typical torque curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two gears with dierent diameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gear ratios for a typical car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maximum velocity that can be achieved for each gear . . . . . . . Typical emission rates for Volatile Organic Compounds (Hydrocarbons HC), carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and fuel consumption as a function of average speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 VNSim architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diusion mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The values of the coecients used in Equation 3.1 . . . . . . . . . Fuel consumption for vechicles passing through an intersection . . Intersection with intelligent trac light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . UML class diagram for the standalone application . . . . . . . . . UML class diagram for integration in VNSim . . . . . . . . . . . . A car that accelerates from 0 km/h to 108 km/h . . . . . . . . . . The emissions of a car that accelerated from 0 km/h to 108 km/h A car that accelerates from 0 km/h to 54.8 km/h and then maintains a constant speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The emissions of a car that accelerated from 0 km/h to 54.8 km/h and than maintained a constant speed - the car traveled a given amount of time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 The emissions of a car that accelerated from 0 km/h to 54.8 km/h and that maintained a constant speed - the car traveled a given distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 40 15 21 24 26 27 29 32 37 39 39 40 4 6 7 9 10

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

5.6

A car traveling at a constant speed of 11 m/s, stops at the red trac light and then accelerates until it reaches the same speed again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 43 44 44

5.7 5.8 5.9

The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.6 . . . . . . . A car traveling at 11 m/s accelerates in order to catch the green light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.8 . . . . . . . trac light and then accelerates until it reaches the same speed

5.10 A car traveling at a constant speed of 6 m/s, stops at the red again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.11 The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.10 . . . . . . . 5.12 A car traveling at 6 m/s accelerates in order to catch the green light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.13 The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.12 . . . . . . . 5.14 A car traveling at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) stops at the red trac light and then accelerates until it reaches the speed it would have needed to avoid the red color (which lasted for 20s), if possible . . 5.15 The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.14 . . . . . . . 5.16 A car traveling at at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) reduces speed to 34 km/h ( 9.47 m/s) in order to avoid stopping at the red light . . 5.17 The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.16 . . . . . . . 5.18 A car traveling at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) stops at the red trac light and then accelerates until it reaches the speed it would have needed to avoid the red color (which lasted for 40s) . . . . . . . . 5.19 The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.18 . . . . . . . 5.20 A car traveling at at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) reduces speed to 15.3 km/h ( 4.25 m/s) in order to avoid stopping at the red light . . 5.21 The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.20 . . . . . . . 50 50 51 51 48 48 49 49 46 46 45 45

viii

List of Abbreviations
Forces FD FT Fg FN f FN r FRf FRr Te drag force - determined by air friction torque force force of gravity normal force of the front wheels normal force of the rear wheels rolling friction force of the front wheels rolling friction force of the rear wheels torque generated by the engine

ix

Introduction
This thesis presents an intelligent transportation system that aims at reducing fuel consumption and, consequently, car emissions. The main ideea of the project is to constantly guide the drivers through intersections with trac lights, by recommending optimal speeds to reduce the number of stop-starts due to red lights and the number of vain accelerations to catch green lights. The system uses intelligent trac lights that constantly inform the approaching cars about the current state of the intersections. For each road segment controlled by the trac light, the broadcasted message will contain the current color and the time until it changes. The cars are equiped with radio devices that enable the communication with the trac light. They are also equiped with computing systems that are able to run complex software. Being equiped with such devices, the cars form a VANET through which they can forward the messages received from the trac lights to other cars that are out of the trac lights communication range. The number of cars has grown exponentially since the early 1900s, when there were only about 4,000 cars on the entire planet. Today there are about 1.1 bilion of cars and trucks on the roads world-wide. Many experts predict that, by 2030, the number of automobiles will double to 2.3 bilion. The rising number of cars increased air pollution to a level that threatens the environment. Tons of pollutants are emitted in the air every day. These pollutants have negative eects on health and environment. For example, ground level ozone (O3 ) can be formed. This is the leading product of smog. Smog can cause visibility and lung-health issues. Also, carbone dioxide is said to cause Global Warming. So, this project is developed mainly to help protecting health and environment and secondly, to

LIST OF FIGURES

minimize trac congestions by smoothing vehicular trac ow. This thesis is organized in four parts. It starts by describing the State of the Art. In this section the theoretical basis of my work and existing solutions will be presented. The next section presents the Simulation Environment. In this section VNSim will be described. My application will be integrated into this vehicular simulator for testing issues. The next section is Design and Implementation. This section presents the architecture of my application: the proposed algorithms to compute the optimal speed, the improvements made to the existing simulator and the method used to integrate my project into VNSim. Next section, Experimental Results and Analysis will present the results obtained. The last section, Conclusions, contains the nal conclusions and future work.

State of the Art

2.1 Mechanical physics

To be able to simulate car movements, by computing the speed and distance at any given moment, as accurate as possible, a basic knowledge of mechanical physics is necessary. In this this section I will describe the physics that helped my car move with high accuracy. The book that I used to get a good understanding in mechanical physics is Bourg (2002). During the Renaissance period, scientists like Galileo and Newton reformulated the basic laws of motion. With experiments and observations, they developed improved physical models for predicting the motion of objects. They came up with the basic relationships that model the interaction of force, mass, and acceleration. From these resulted the three famous laws of motion that everyone should know, so I will put them here: Newtons First Law of Motion: Inertia - Every body preserves in its state of rest, or of uniform in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon. In other words, a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force. Newtons Second Law of Motion: Force, Mass, and Acceleration - The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed: and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed. Newtons second law says that an acceleration of an object is due to a net external force applied to the object. Force, therefore, is proportional to acceleration (F=ma).

2.1 Mechanical physics

Newtons Third Law of Motion: Equal and Opposite Forces - To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

2.1.1

Basic car diagram

Building the physical model of a car starts by drawing the forces that act on the car (see 2.1 - the notations are explained in the List of Abbreviations section). The gure shows the forces that act on a car driving on an inclined surface. For simplication, in my application I considered the angle, , to be 0.

Figure 2.1: Force balance on a car

The force of gravity Fg pulls the car towards the earth. This force of gravity in the normal direction, FgN , is balanced by normal forces, FN f and FN r , that act along the surfaces of the front and rear tires that are in contact with the ground. The total normal force, FN , is the sum of the forces on the front and rear tires and is equal to the mass of the car multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity and the cosine of the slope angle, .

2.1 Mechanical physics

FN = FN f + FN r = mg cos

(2.1)

The engine generates torque, which when applied to the wheels causes them to rotate. The force applied to the tires, FT , is equal to the torque applied to the wheels, Tw , divided by the wheel radius, rw . Tw (2.2) rw When the car is in motion, an aerodynamic drag force develops. This drag FT = force can be modeled as a function of the air density, , frontal area, A, the square of the velocity magnitude, v, and a drag coecient, CD . 1 (2.3) FD = CD v 2 A 2 The last important force in the car diagram (2.1) is due to rolling friction. This force acts on all four wheels and resists the rolling motion of the car. The total rolling friction force, FR , is equal to the total normal force, FN , multiplied by the coecient of rolling friction for the vehicle, r . FR = r FN = r mg cos (2.4)

The total force that acts on the car parallel to the direction the car is driving, Ftotal , is equal to the sum of the forces due to engine torque, gravity, aerodynamic drag, and rolling friction. Tw 1 mg cos mg sin CD v 2 A (2.5) rw 2 The acceleration of the car at any given time is equal to the net force on the Ftotal = vehicle divided by the mass of the vehicle, m. a= 1 CD v 2 A Tw g cos g sin rw m 2 m (2.6)

2.1 Mechanical physics

2.1.2

Engine torque

The engine generates a torque that is used to move the car. The torque generated by the engine is not the same as the torque applied to the wheels (the engine is not coupled directly to the wheels, but to some set of gears). The engine torque is a function of the rate at which the engine is turning over. Te = Te (e ) (2.7)

The engine turnover rate, e , is expressed in revolutions per minute, rpm. The torque curve shows the relation between the engine torque and the engines turnover rate.

Figure 2.2: A typical torque curve

These curves vary from car to car and can be obtained from the manufacturer or from other sources. A typical torque curve is shown in 2.2. One characteristic of engine torque is that it does not always increase with increasing engine turnover rate. The torque in the curve shown in 2.2 increases with increasing rpm until it

2.1 Mechanical physics

reaches a peak value of 309 N-m at about 4600 rpm. As the engine turnover rate increases beyond 4600 rpm, the torque delivered by the engine decreases. To compute the power of the engine, Pe , the engine torque is multiplied by the angular velocity of the engine. Pe = Te e (2.8)

The angular velocity of the engine, e , measured in rad/s can be obtained by multiplying the engine turnover rate by 2 and dividing by 60. e = 2e 60 (2.9)

2.1.3

Gears and wheel torque

The torque applied to the wheels of a car determines its acceleration. In general, the torque applied to the wheels is not the same as the engine torque because before the engine torque is applied to the wheels it passes through a transmission.

Figure 2.3: Two gears with dierent diameters

The gears inside a transmission change the angular velocity and torque transferred from the engine. This can greatly increase the acceleration of a car. For example, consider the two gears in 2.3. The second gear has twice the diameter of the rst. This means that when the second gear completes a rotation, the rst one has completes two rotations. In other words, the angular velocity of the

2.1 Mechanical physics

second gear is twice the angular velocity of the rst. However, the torque that the second gear can support is twice that of the rst gear. The gear ratio between two gears is the ratio of the gear diameters. In 2.3, the gear ratio between the second and rst gears would be 2:1. Car transmissions will typically have between three and six forward gears and one reverse gear. There is also an additional set of gears between the transmission and the wheels. The gear ratio of this nal gearset is known as the nal drive ratio. As mentioned in a previous paragraph, the engine torque is not the same as the wheel torque. The wheel torque, Tw , is equal to the engine torque, Te , multiplied by the gear ratio, gk , of whatever gear the car is in and the nal drive ratio, G, of the car. Tw = Te gk G (2.10)

Using equations 2.6 and 2.10, the cars acceleration can be computed with: Te gk G 1 CD v 2 A g cos g sin (2.11) rw m 2 m Transmission gears also change the angular velocity of the wheel relative to the turnover rate of the engine (the factor 60 is to transform rpm in revolutions a= per second): w = 2e 60gk G (2.12)

If the tires roll on the ground without slipping (burn rubber eect), the translational velocity of the car, v, can be related to the angular velocity of the wheel, and therefore to the engine turnover rate: v = rw w = rw 2e 60gk G (2.13)

Loking at equations 2.11 and 2.13, the following important observations can be made: the higher the gear ratio, the higher the acceleration and the lower the car velocity for a given rpm

2.1 Mechanical physics

increasing the nal drive ratio increases the acceleration for all gears but likewise decreases the car velocity for a given rpm for all gears. An example of the gear ratios for a typical car is ilustrated in 2.4.

Figure 2.4: Gear ratios for a typical car

Every car engine has a characteristic known as a redline rpm value. The engine cannot exceed this turnover rate for more than a brief period of time without causing damage to the engine. A typical cars redline value is 7200 rpm. Using equation 2.13 and the data in 2.4, the theoretical maximum velocity for each gear at 7200 rpm can be computed, and the results are shown in 2.5. Equation 2.13 can be used to calculate what the engine rpm value will be after a gear shift. If the car is shifted into a higher gear, the gear ratio is reduced. If the velocity of the car is assumed to be constant before and after the gear shift, the engine rpm level will decline because of the lower gear ratio. The new engine turnover rate, e (new), will be equal to the engine turnover rate before the gear shift, e (old), multiplied by the ratio of the new gear ratio to the previous gear ratio. e (new) = e (old) gk (new) gk (old) (2.14)

2.1 Mechanical physics

Figure 2.5: Maximum velocity that can be achieved for each gear

2.1.4

Computing acceleration and velocity

In order to create a car simulation, it is necessary to determine the acceleration and velocity of the car at any point in time. The starting point for this analysis is 2.11. If the slope angle, frontal area, and air density are known, the only unknown quantity in 2.11 is the wheel torque, Tw . According to 2.10, the wheel torque is the product of the engine torque, Te , the current gear ratio, gk , and the nal drive ratio, G. The engine torque, Te , can be obtained from the torque curve of the engine(see 2.2). Torque curve data is usually presented either as a plot or as a table of numbers. For programming purposes, the torque curve needs to be expressed as a mathematical expression. The easiest way to mathematically model a torque curve is with a series of straight lines. The torque curve in 2.2 can be modeled by three equations. The units for engine torque in all three equations are in N-m.

10

2.1 Mechanical physics

Te = 220 Te = 0.025e + 195 Te = 0.032e + 457.2

, e 1000 , e < 4600 , e 4600

(2.15) (2.16) (2.17)

The general equation for the three previous ones is: Te = be + d (2.18)

Using 2.18 and 2.13, equation 2.11 results in an expression for the acceleration of the car as a function of the current velocity of the car: 1 CD v 2 A 60gk 2 G2 bv gk Gd + g cos g sin 2mrw 2 mrw 2 m Equation 2.19 can be written in a simpler manner: a= dv = c1 v 2 + c2 v + c3 dt With the constants c1 , c2 and c3 being: a= 1 CD v 2 A 2 m 2 2 60gk G b c2 = 2mrw 2 gk Gd c3 = g cos g sin mrw c1 = (2.19)

(2.20)

(2.21) (2.22) (2.23)

Knowing the car motion equation 2.20, and some typical parameters for the rolling friction coecient (0.015), the frontal area of the car (1.94 m2 ), the wheel radius (0.3186), etc. I just needed a method to solve this dierential equation. I will present the method used, in the following subsection.

11

2.1 Mechanical physics

2.1.5

Fourth-order Runge-Kutta

The fourth-order Runge-Kutta method is one of a family of step-wise integration methods, meaning that from a set of initial conditions, the ordinary dierential equation (ODE) is solved at discrete increments of the independent variable. For the equations of motion, the independent variable will be time. Consider the dierential equation: dz = v(z, t) (2.24) dt Knowing, zn and vn , at a given time, tn we could determine the z value at a future time, tn + t, where t is a certain time increment. For small enough increments in the independent variable, t, the derivative in 2.24 can be replaced with its delta form. dz z = v(z, t) (2.25) dt t Then , the value of z function, zn+1 , at the future time tn + t can be determined: z = zn+1 zn = v(z, t)t (2.26)

The question is where should the velocity, v(z,t), be evaluated. A natural choice would be to evaluate the velocity at the known conditions, zn and tn . z = zn+1 zn = v(zn , tn )t (2.27)

This approach is known as Eulers method. Unfortunately, Eulers method is not accurate unless the slope of the velocity curve is more or less constant between times tn and tn + t. A more accurate method is fourth-order Runge-Kutta. With this method a series of estimates are made for the z value at the new time by evaluating v at dierent values of z and t. An initial estimate is made for zn+1 using the v at zn and tn (that is, Eulers method). A second estimate is computed by evaluating v at a point halfway between the known conditions and the results of the rst

12

2.2 Car emissions

estimate. Two more estimates are made in a similar manner, and the nal value for zn+1 is obtained from a linear combination of the four estimates. The ve mathematical equations that form the fourth-order Runge-Kutta scheme when it is applied to solve equation 2.24 are:

z1 = v(zn , tn )t 1 1 z2 = v(zn + z1 , tn + t)t 2 2 1 1 z3 = v(zn + z2 , tn + t)t 2 2 z4 = v(zn + z3 , tn + t)t z1 z2 z3 z4 zn+1 = zn + + + + 6 3 3 6

(2.28) (2.29) (2.30) (2.31) (2.32)

2.2

Car emissions

There are hundreds of millions of cars on the roads today that are propelled by internal combustion engines, and each one is a source of air pollution. Especially in large cities, the amount of pollution that all the cars produce together can cause serious damage. Engines with internal combustion are made of a number of cylinders (most cars have more than one cylinder - four, six and eight cylinders are common), each containing a piston that moves up and down the cylinder, causing the rotation of the cars wheel. The movement of the piston is possible through the ignition of a tiny amount of high-energy fuel (like gasoline) in a small, enclosed space. The amount of fuel to be burned is carefully controlled, in order to reduce emissions. The stoichiometric point is the ideal ratio of air to fuel. Theoretically, at this point all the oxygen in the air will be used to burn all the fuel in the enclosed space. For example, the stoichiometric point for gasoline is 14.7:1, in other words, for each pound of gasoline, 14.7 pounds of air will be burned. Unfortunately, during driving the stoichiometric point is not always reached. After the ignition of the fuel, a number of gases are released:

13

2.2 Car emissions

Nitrogen gas (N2) - Air is 78-percent nitrogen gas, and most of this passes right through the car engine. Carbon dioxide (CO2) - This is one product of combustion. The carbon in the fuel bonds with the oxygen in the air. Water vapor (H2O) - This is another product of combustion. The hydrogen in the fuel bonds with the oxygen in the air. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a poisonous gas that is colorless and odorless. Hydrocarbons or volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a major component of smog produced mostly from evaporated, unburned fuel. Nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2, together called NOx) are a contributor to smog (smoke + fog) and acid rain, which also causes irritation to human mucus membranes. In Haworth & Symmons (2001), the authors try to relate speed to fuel consumption and emissions rate, see (2.6) . They emphasise how important it is the drivers behavior to reducing car emissions. Changes in speed need acceleration or deceleration. Emissions tend to be highest during acceleration, when the fuel to air ratio (described previous) is higher than optimal. This results in large increases in CO and HC emissions as well as increased fuel consumption. In fact, the emissions of pollutants during acceleration are ve to ten times higher, on average, than the emissions during idling. The acceleration characteristics of the vehicle and driver contribute signicantly to actual emissions and fuel consumption. How the driver accelerates inuences greatly the amount of emissions during acceleration. Very hard or aggressive accelerations, or accelerations under heavy load (e.g., when driving up a hill) can produce higher emissions than do moderate accelerations. Another important issue in reducing car emissions, that can also be controlled by the driver, is the so called cold start. If a car is started with a

14

2.2 Car emissions

Figure 2.6: Typical emission rates for Volatile Organic Compounds (Hydrocarbons HC), carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and fuel consumption as a function of average speed

cold enough catalytic converter, the chemical reactions that convert pollutants to water vapour, nitrogen and carbon dioxide will not take place. A rst conclusion to this section is that the driver can greatly inuce the emissions rate through: smooth accelerations - no rapid speed changes constant speed at cruising reduced number of cold starts by combining several shorter trips into one longer trip. This conclusion was the starting point for my project. The application I wanted to develop should aid the driver in controlling his/her cars emissions. Developing a system to reduce car emissions rst needs a vehicle simulator which can be able to estimate as acurate as posible the fuel consumption and

15

2.3 Intelligent Transport Systems

emissions. Many such simulators have been developed, each trying to achive a high rate of accuracy: ADvanced VehIcle SimulatOR (ADVISOR) - First developed in November 1994, by National Renewable Energy Laboratory(NREL), ADVISOR was designed as an analysis tool to assist the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in studying hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). ADVISOR is often used to evaluate many dierent vehicle designs and to do studies to look at the eect of varying parameters away from some baseline. Some suppliers are using ADVISOR to evaluate how well their components would perform, comparing their components with those in the ADVISOR library. Although all of the major automobile manufacturers have their own proprietary simulation tools, they use ADVISOR to compare their product with others. MOtor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES) - Developed by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), MOVES is a vehicle simulator which provides an accurate estimate of emissions from mobile sources under a wide range of user-dened conditions. The user can specify vehicle types, time periods, geographical areas, pollutants, vehicle characteristics and road types to be modeled. After that, a series of calculations are performed, which accurately reect vehicle operating processes, including cold start, and provide estimates of emission rates Car EcoMeter - Developed by Royal Automobile Club of Victoria(RACV) and Environmental Protection Agency Victoria (EPA Victoria), this application estimates the fuel consumpiton and car emissions for a wide range of models and characteristics. The application is available online. The user is able to choose beetwen a series of characteristics, such as fuel type, vehicle type, year of manufacture, driver behaviour, etc.

2.3

Intelligent Transport Systems

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are mainly about bringing communication technology and information processing into transportation. The main

16

2.3 Intelligent Transport Systems

concerns of ITS are reducing trac congestions, transportation durations and fuel consumption, increasing safety and automating various trac processes, e.g. paying parking bill. There are many types of ITS, that vary in terms of the technologies used. There are basic management systems, such as: car navigation; trac signal control systems; automatic number plate recognition or speed cameras, there are monitoring systems, such as security CCTV systems, and there are also more advanced systems that communicate with a number of other sources, such as parking guidance and information systems and weather information. Some of technologies implemented in ITS, that my application would require in order to be deployed on cars and trac lights, are: Wireless comunication - Two standards have been proposed for short-range comunications: IEEE 802.11 protocols and Dedicated Short Range Communications. For long-range comunications infrastructure networks are being used: Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), WiMAX (IEEE 802.16), or 3G. Long-range comunications are more expensive because of the nedded infrastructure. Computation technologies - Vehicles are provided with more capable computer processors that can even run real-time operating systems. Complex software applications can be developed. Some inspiring applications developed with ITS are: Arterial Management - surveillance, trac control - mainly used to smooth trac ow (adaptive signal control, advanced signal systems, etc.), lane management, parking management, information dissemination, enforcement - used to detect cars that dont obey trac rules (speed enforcement, trac signal enforcement) Crash Prevention and Safety - road geometry warning (e.g., curve speed warning), intersection collision warning, bicycle warning

17

2.4 Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks

Trac Incident Management - used to decrease the time to detect incidents, the time for responding vehicles to arrive, and the time required for trac to return to normal conditions. Electronic payment and pricing - electronic toll collection, parking fee payment Continuous research in ITS is being conducted. The World Congress and Exhibition on Intelligent Transport Systems and Services, takes place in Stockholm in September 2009. The 16th annual event, which rotates between Europe, the Americas and the Asia-Pacic region, comes to Sweden for the rst time and takes place at Stockholm International Fairs (Stockholmsmssan), from 21st - 25th September 2009. The theme of this prestigious event is ITS in Daily Life, exploring how ITS can improve everyday mobility.

2.4

Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are a special kind of networks that form between cars that are able to communicate with other cars (vehicle-to-vehicle communication) or with other roadside base stations (vehicle-to-infrastructure communication). To be able to communicate with eachother or with the infrastructure, the cars are equiped with short-distance communication devices. A major advantage of VANETs is that they dont need an infrastructure and do not use a central administration so that the nodes can communicate with each other. However, VANETs are not without problems. Due to the great mobility of the nodes, VANETs can suer rapid changes in the topology, frequent node disconnections, as well as information waste. A serious issue with VANETs is also the security. The security of such networks is addressed in Raya & Hubaux (2007). The authors present some possible threats and the corresponding solutions.

18

2.5 Travolution

2.5

Travolution

After two years of research Audi has developed a trac management system, Travolution, who aims at reducing car emissions. Travolution is based on vehicleto-semaphore communication. The semaphore will inform the car about the time until a color phase changes. The 1.2 milion project has already been tested. In Ingolstadt, the home of Audi, 46 intelligent semaphores have been synchronized to minimize stopped time and pollution. Three of them have been equiped with Travolution system to be able to communicate with also specially equipped Audi A5 and A6 Avants. The testing will continue and more Travolution systems will be deployed.

19

Simulation Environment
Testing a VANET application is a very expensive process when using real cars, real equipment and real roads. Real testing should be done only as a nal stage of the project. Instead, a VANET simulator can be used. To test my application I have decided to use VNSim, described in Gorgorin et al. (2006). Developed at University Politehnica of Bucharest, VNSim is a microscopic simulator1 that implements the components nedeed for any VANET application: wireless communication module, mobility module, map simulator module, etc.

3.1

VNSim System Architecture

VNSim is an event-based trac simulator which works on discrete time increments. This means that, at each time increment, all the current events2 are pulled from the queue of events and handled randomly. After executing all handling code, the simulation time progresses to the next time increment. Three types of events have been considered: send, receive and GPS (see Figure 3.1 for the complete architecture of VNSim - the picture was taken from Gorgorin et al. (2006)). When a send event is pulled from the queue of events, the execution of a handler function is triggered. This function prepares the message to be sent and then it schedules the corresponding receive events for all those nodes the simulator decides to deliver this message to (for example, in case of a broadcast message, all the nodes situated in the communication range of the sender will receive this message). The GPS event is rescheduled periodically for each node.
1 2

a simulator that takes into account the actions of each individual vehicle events that have been scheduled to take place at the current simulation time

20

3.2 Mobility module

Figure 3.1: VNSim architecture

3.2

Mobility module

The mobility module is responsible with moving the car to its next position during a time increment, according to a mobility model. The mobility model takes into account the personality of the drivers, the interactions with other cars, trac rules, etc.

3.2.1

Maps

All trac simulators should have a digital map on which to position the cars. In VNSim, TIGER maps are used (see Bureau (2008)). These digital maps are available for free and consist of two types of les: Record Type 1 (RT1) and Record Type 2 (RT2). RT1 les contain information about all the road segments of the map (name, type, starting and ending points). RT2 les contain intermediate points of the road segments for representing the curves. The points are given in terms of geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude). Interpolation is used

21

3.2 Mobility module

to compute more intermediate points. This will increase the accuracy of the map. To compute the distance between two points on the map, VNSim uses conversion tables from degrees to meters depending on the latitude and longitude. Unfortunately, TIGER les lack some useful trac-specic information, such as the number of lanes on the roads, the slope of the roads and the positions of trac control systems (trac lights, trac signs, etc.). Knowing the slope of the roads would have been vey useful for my application, beacause it inuences the forces that act on the car. To integrate my application into VNSim I had to override a small part of the mobility module. In the next section I will explain the implementation of this complex module.

3.2.2

Implementation details

Using Java as the programming language, the implementation is based on the object-oriented paradigm. To be able to position the cars on roads, this module uses a representation of the digital map, implemented as the Map class. This class contains an array of objects of type Road and each road contains an array of objects of type CarInstance. Class CarInstance models the vehicles behavior; imagine it as being the driver. The most important method this class implements is the move() method. This is where all the decisions about the next position of the car are made. To predict the next position of the car1 three factors are taken into account: trac control systems, the position of adjacent vehicles, and the drivers personality. Whenever the method move() is called, the driver starts analysing the trac conditions, to decide the wanted speed. At rst, the trac control system at the next intersection is checked (for instance, if the next intersection is controlled by a trac light and the color is red, the driver should decelerate, assuming that the distance between the car and the trac light is suciently small). The next intersection this car is going to pass through is represented by an object of
assuming that the car has a predened route; for example, the simulator knows when a car is turning left
1

22

3.3 Trac data dissemination

type Intersection, stored in class CarInstance. The next intersection is computed whenever the car changes the road segment. After checking the conditions at the intersection, the adjacent vehicles are taken into account to make the nal decision. If the nal decision implies a greater speed than the current one, the driver accelerates with a predened acceleration, according to his/her personality.

3.3

Trac data dissemination

Trac data dissemination basically refers to how data can be transfered between cars forming a VANET. Two main mechanisms of trac data dissemination are explained in Nadeem et al. (2004): ooding and diusion. In the ooding mechanism, each node periodically broadcasts information about itself. On receiving a broadcasted message, the node stores it in its database and immediately forwards the message to any node within its range, by rebroadcasting it. In the diusion mechanism, each node broadcast information about itself and about the other nodes from its database. In 3.2 the diusion mechanism is illustrated. Assuming that vehicles 2 and 3 are in the transmission range of vehicle 1 and vehicles 3 and 4 are in the transmission range of vehicles 2 and 3, respectively, and will stay this way during two broadcast intervals. The nal state of each vehicles database, after the two broadcast periods, is illustrated in the third picture of 3.2. I didt explicitly use diusion in my application, as the only information beeing broadcasted and rebroadcasted is the information about the trac light. However, I will test my application using xed trac ligths1 as well as adaptive trac lights2 , described in Gradinescu (2006). In case of adaptive trac lights, cars use the diusion mechanism to send information about themselves.
trac ligths that have a xed, predened phase length trac lights that can change their phase lenghts between cycles, e.g. they could extend the green phase in case of a lengthy car queue
2 1

23

3.4 Fuel Consumption and Pollutant Emissions Estimation

Figure 3.2: Diusion mechanism

3.4

Fuel Consumption and Pollutant Emissions Estimation

VNSim can be used to estimate fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. This is very useful for testing my application. This section describes the method used to compute fuel consumption and emissions. Estimating fuel consumption and pollutant emissions is a necessity when evaluating trac management applications. To model fuel consumption and emissions (CO2 , CO, HC, N Ox ), the authors of VNSim used the work of Akcelik and Besley, from Akcelik & Besley (2003). Akcelik and Besley describe the method to estimate emissions and fuel consumption used in aaSIDRA1 and aaMOTION2 . The method presented in their paper has been simplied to take into account only light vehicles. The formula used to estimate the value of fuel consumed (mL) or emissions produced (g), in a time interval (t), is:
1 2

an intersection analysis package, developed by Akcelik and Associates 2002 a single-vehicle microscopic simulation package that uses a time-step simulation model

24

3.4 Fuel Consumption and Pollutant Emissions Estimation

2 Mv a2 v ]a>0 )t F = (fi + 1 RT v + [ 1000 F = fi t where:

, RT > 0 , RT 0

(3.1) (3.2)

F [mL or g] - the quantity consumed or gas emitted (HC, CO, N Ox ) during a time interval; v[m/s] - vehicle instantaneous velocity; a[m/s2 ] - acceleration; Mv [kg] - vehicle mass (1400 kg on average for light vehicles in a city environment); RT [kN] - total force acting on a car, including air drag and rolling resistance; RT = Mv a + Frr + Fad Frr - rolling resistance force; Frr = Crr Mv g (3.4) (3.3)

Crr - rolling resistance coecient, 0.15 on average for each tire (depends on road surface) Fad - air drag force 1 Fad = v 2 ACD 2 - air density (1.29 kg/m3 ); A - frontal car area; CD - drag coecient; (3.5)

25

3.4 Fuel Consumption and Pollutant Emissions Estimation

fi [mL/s or g/s] idle fuel consumption rate or gas emissions rate; 1 [mL or g per kJ] fuel consumed or gas emitted per engine energy unit; 2 [mL or g per (kJm/s2 )] coecient for fuel consumption or gas emissions per unit of energy-acceleration, reects the function behavior on positive acceleration. The values for fi , 1 and 2 are presented in Figure 3.3 and have been taken from Akcelik & Besley (2003).

Figure 3.3: The values of the coecients used in Equation 3.1

Carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is calculated based on the fuel consumed, with the following formula: F (CO2 ) = F (f uel)fCO2 (3.6)

fCO2 - the CO2 emission rate given per quantity of fuel [g/mL] (it is equal to 2.5[g/mL] for light vehicles). In Figure 3.4 there are three graphics showing fuel consumtion related to speed and acceleration for vehicles passing through an intersection. (The picture was taken from Gradinescu (2006))

26

3.4 Fuel Consumption and Pollutant Emissions Estimation

Figure 3.4: Fuel consumption for vechicles passing through an intersection

27

Design and Implementation

With the number of cars expected to double in the next 20 years, more ecient trac managemnt will be needed. Intelligent trac lights systems and VANETs have been given a lot of attention in the last years. The evolution of trac lights is very impressive considering that the simplest trac lights operate on timers, with predetermined periods of red, yellow and green. Today, complex trac lights systems can be deployed to help improve trac conditions. Intelligent trac lights are trac lights that are able to send useful information to the approaching vehicles, to servers, to other trac lights, etc. or that are aware of the approaching vehicles and use this information to make decisions that can smooth trac ow.

4.1

System design

The intelligent trac system we have developed is mostly based on trac lightto-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle communication (see Figure 4.1). We assume that the trac lights and the vehicles are equiped with short range communication devices and computing power. The trac lights are used to periodically broadcast information about the current color of the lights and the time until it changes, for each segment of road it controlls. The cars use the information received from trac lights to adjust their speed according to an algorithm that aims at reducing the quantity of emissions. Also, because of the short communication range of the trac lights, the cars rebroadcast the message received from the trac light.

28

4.1 System design

Figure 4.1: Intersection with intelligent trac light

29

4.2 Implementation details

4.2

Implementation details

To be able to implement an application that predicts as accurate as possible the movement of a car on a given distance, or in a given amount of time, I needed a dierent mobility model than the one implemented in VNSim. All the previous applications/protocols tested with VNSim (see Gradinescu (2006), Gorgorin (2006) and Ichimescu (2008)) didnt need a very accurate mobility module, as they were not focused on the movement of the car. My application is focused more on the algorithms being run on the vehicles. These alghorithms need to know with high precisions the future speed and position of the car. The integration with VNSim is important because it will enable testing the application using complete scenarios (the maps simulator and the communication module already implemented in VNSim will be of great use). In this section I will start by describing the implementation of the application I have developed and then I will continue with a description of how my application can be integrated into VNSim.

4.2.1

The standalone application

By the standalone application I refer to the part of the application which has not been integrated in VNSim and can be tested separately. The only thing that I used from VNSim for this part of the project was the Estimating Emissions module, which is described in the previous chapter (see Section 3.4). The application has been written in Java. For a clear view of the entire structure, the UML diagram is illustrated in Figure 4.2. In the next paragraphs I will explain each of the implemented classes: DESolver - This class implements the Runge-Kutta 4 method to solve ordinary dierential equations. DierentialEquation - This class represents an ordinary dierential equation. Field s represents the independent variable (in our case it represents time) and eld q represents the array of dependent variables (in our case these will be speed and distance). Field nrEq represents the number of

30

4.2 Implementation details

equations to be solved simultaneously. The most important method of this class is getRightTerm. This abstract method, that must be implemented by all the classes that extend this class, represents the value of the right-hand expresion of the dierential equation. For example, in Equation 2.25, the function getRightTerm will return the value of v, evaluated at the current values of zn and tn . Car - This class extends DierentialEquation class and implements the getRightTerm method using Equation 2.20. It also contains all the necessary elds for implementing the equations discussed in the State of the Art chapter, section Mechanical Physics. For example, eld muR is the rolling friction coecient, eld omegaE represents the engine revolutions per minute, etc. This class can be extended by various classes to represend dierent models of cars. OrdinaryLightCar - This class extends Car class to initialize the elds for an ordinary light car. For example, the area eld will be initialized with 2.1 m, the wheelRadius eld will be initialized at 0.3186 m, etc. SimulatorEvaluation - This class implements the two algorithms applied in case of green and red trac lights (these simple algorithms are described further in this section) and it is also used for testing.

4.2.1.1

The algorithm applied in case of green lights

This algorithm is applied when a car, approaching an intersection with trac light, is informed that the current trac light color is green. The algorithm must decide if the driver can catch the green light emitting a smaller quantity of gases than stopping at the red light. The steps of the algorithm are: predict the movement of the car, assuming the driver tries to catch the green light (he/she accelerates until the needed speed) and estimate the emissions. The pseudocode for this part of the algorithm is:

31

4.2 Implementation details

Figure 4.2: UML class diagram for the standalone application

32

4.2 Implementation details

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

car .distance = 0 / the total distance traveled by the car / car .time = 0 / the total time the car traveled / timeIncrement = 0.06 / the time increment to apply runge-kutta / car .setMode(accelerate) while car .distance < distanceToTracLight neededSpeed = (distanceToTracLight car .distance) (greenTime car .time) if neededSpeed > M AXS P EEDA LLOW ED return / the driver cannot catch the green light / if neededSpeed <= car .speed car .setMode(cruise) car .updateSpeedAndLocation(timeIncrement) / this updates / car.time, car.speed and car.distance car .estimateEmissions()

predict the movement of the car, assuming the driver maintains constant speed, stops at the red color, then accelerates to the speed he had before stopping and estimate the emissions. The pseudocode for this part of the algrithm is: 1 2 3 4 5 car .distance = 0 / the total distance traveled by the car / car .time = 0 / the total time the car traveled / timeIncrement = 0.06 / the time increment to apply runge-kutta / car .setMode(cruise) / the driver keeps a constant speed / while car .distance < distanceToTracLight 100 / assume the driver starts to break / 100m before the intersection car .updateSpeedAndLocation(timeIncrement) car .estimateEmissions() car .setMode(break ) / the driver breaks to stop to the red light / while car .distance < distanceToTracLight car .updateSpeedAndLocation(timeIncrement) car .estimateEmissions() car .setMode(accelerate) / the driver accelerates to the speed he had before stopping / while car .speed < WANTEDS PEED car .updateSpeedAndLocation(timeIncrement) car .estimateEmissions()

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

33

4.2 Implementation details

compare the results obtained in the two situations and recommend the optimal speed to the driver 4.2.1.2 The algorithm applied in case of red lights

This algorithm is applied when a car, approaching an intersection with trac light, is informed that the current trac light color is red. The algorithm must decide if, upon reducing the speed in order to enter the intersection when the light color is turning green, the quantity of emissions is smaller. The steps of the algorithm are: predict the movement of the car, assuming the driver reduces the speed in an attempt to avoid the red light and estimate the emissions. The pseudocode for this part of the algorithm is: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 car .distance = 0 / the total distance traveled by the car / car .time = 0 / the total time the car traveled / timeIncrement = 0.06 / the time increment to apply runge-kutta / car .setMode(break ) while car .distance < distanceToTracLight neededSpeed = (distanceToTracLight car .distance) (greenTime car .time) if neededSpeed < M INS P EEDA LLOW ED return / the driver cannot avoid the red light / if neededSpeed >= car .speed car .setMode(cruise) car .updateSpeedAndLocation(timeIncrement) / this updates / car.time, car.speed and car.distance car .estimateEmissions()

predict the movement of the car, assuming the driver maintains constant speed, stops at the red color, then accelerates to the speed he would have needed to avoid the red light, if that would have been possible. The pseudocode for this part of the algrithm is:

34

4.2 Implementation details

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

car .distance = 0 / the total distance traveled by the car / car .time = 0 / the total time the car traveled / timeIncrement = 0.06 / the time increment to apply runge-kutta / car .setMode(cruise) / the driver keeps a constant speed / while car .distance < distanceToTracLight 100 / assume the driver starts to break / 100m before the intersection car .updateSpeedAndLocation(timeIncrement) car .estimateEmissions() car .setMode(break ) / the driver breaks to stop to the red light / while car .distance < distanceToTracLight car .updateSpeedAndLocation(timeIncrement) car .estimateEmissions() car .setMode(accelerate) / the driver accelerates to the speed he had before stopping / while car .speed < NEEDEDS PEED car .updateSpeedAndLocation(timeIncrement) car .estimateEmissions()

compare the results obtained in the two situations and recommend the optimal speed to the driver

4.2.2

Integration with VNSim

To integrate the application with VNSim, some classes of the vehicular simulator must be extended, in order to override some important methods. For a clear view of the integration module, see Figure 4.3. In the next paragraphs I will explain all the classes from the integration module: EmissionsCar - This class extends the SimulatedCarInfo class. The SimulatedCarInfo class represents the car node in the vehicular simulator. The car is equiped with a radio device, simulated by class Radio, in order to transmit/receive messages. The important method this class implements and which I have overriden, is onReceive. This method is called whenever this car receives a packet. If the packet contains a message from the trac light, one of the two algorithms presented in the previous section, will be applied.

35

4.2 Implementation details

EmissionsTracLight - This class extends the WirelessTracLight class and overrides the method prepareMessage to permit the trac light to broadcast periodical messages about the current state of the trac lights colors and durations. EmissionsDriver - This class simulates the car driver. It extends the CarInstance class and overrides the method move. This method is responsible with nding the next position and speed of the car. SegmentLightsInfo - This class is used for creating the message sent by the trac light. It contains information about the current color and its duration for a specic road segment, controlled by the trac light. TLMessage - This class simulates a message sent from the trac light. For each segment of road controlled by the trac light, an object of type SegmentLightsInfo is created. This class contains the timestamp1 , the cycle length and an array of SegmentLightsInfo.

the time when this message was created

36

4.2 Implementation details

Figure 4.3: UML class diagram for integration in VNSim

37

Experimental Results and Analysis

This chapter presents all the experimental results obtained for the standalone application (see Design and Implementation, 4.2.1). The integration with VNSim has not been nished so this section will not contain complete scenarios; it will contain scenarios that involve only one car.

5.1

Preliminary experiments

This section illustrates how acceleration inuences the emissions rate. The following graphics show the results of two dierent scenarios for typical driver behaviours 1 . In the rst scenario, the driver keeps accelerating until the car reaches 30 m/s. Figure 5.1 illustrates how speed and acceleration change in time. In the second scenario, the driver accelerates until the car reaches 15.22 m/s and then he/she maintains a constant speed (see Figure 5.3). Looking at the acceleration curve in Figures 5.1 and 5.3, two observations can be made: 1) the very steep slopes (three in Figure 5.1 and two in 5.3) are due to gear shifting and 2) acceleration is decreasing in time, due to the gear ratio (see Mechanical Physics section, 8) and the increasing drag force. The quantity (in grams) of emitted CO2 and CO in the rst scenario, is shown in Figure 5.2 and the results of the second scenario can be visualized in Figures 5.4 (in which the car traveled for the same amount of time as the one in the rst scenario) and 5.5 (in which the car traveled the same distance as the one in the rst scenario).
1

assuming that the same car is used

38

5.1 Preliminary experiments

Figure 5.1: A car that accelerates from 0 km/h to 108 km/h

Figure 5.2: The emissions of a car that accelerated from 0 km/h to 108 km/h

39

5.1 Preliminary experiments

Figure 5.3: A car that accelerates from 0 km/h to 54.8 km/h and then maintains a constant speed

Figure 5.4: The emissions of a car that accelerated from 0 km/h to 54.8 km/h and than maintained a constant speed - the car traveled a given amount of time

40

5.1 Preliminary experiments

Figure 5.5: The emissions of a car that accelerated from 0 km/h to 54.8 km/h and that maintained a constant speed - the car traveled a given distance

Comparing the results of the two scenarios, it can be noticed that the quantity of gases emitted by the car in the second scenario ( 129g of CO2 ), is smaller that the one obtained in the rst scenario ( 360g of CO2 ). (Noticing the slope of the emissions curve in Figure 5.5 we can compute the total distance the car can travel until its emissions reach the ones in Figure 5.2 - TODO).

41

5.2 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - green trac lights

5.2

Experimental results of the decision algorithm - green trac lights

This section presents the experimental results obtained with the use of the algorithm applied in case of green trac light, described in the previous chapter (see Design and Implementation, 4.2.1.1). The algorithm has been used in two scenarios. In the rst scenario, a car traveling at 40 km/h ( 11 m/s) has 15 seconds to catch the green light. The distance between the trac light and the car is 200 m. The algorithm predicts the speed and acceleration of the car until it passes the intersection and estimates the quantity of emissions in two possible situations: 1) the driver tries to catch the green light and accelerates until the needed speed is reached (see Figure 5.8) and 2) the driver maintains a constant speed, stops and waits at the red light and then accelerates until the previous speed is obtained (see Figure 5.6). The estimated quantity of emissions is illustrated in Figures 5.9 - for the rst situation ( 54 grams of CO2 ) and 5.7 - for the second situation ( 96 grams of CO2 ). Based on these results, the system advises the driver to accelerate (until 62 km/h ( 17.2 m/s) is reached) in order to catch the green light. By doing this, the driver could reduce the quantity of CO2 by 42 grams. In the second scenario, the same car, now traveling at 22km/h ( 6 m/s), has to catch the green light, given the same conditions as in the previous scenario. As before, the algorithm predicts the speed and acceleration of the car until it passes the intersection and estimates the quantity of emissions in the two situations described earlier: 1) illustrated in Figure 5.12 and 2) shown in Figure 5.10. The estimated quantities of emissions for the two situations are shown in Figure 5.13 ( 110 grams of CO2 ) and Figure 5.11 ( 58 grams of CO2 ), respectively. Based on these results the system advises the driver not to accelerate, in the attempt to catch the green light. If the driver complies with this suggestion, he/she would reduce the quantity of CO2 by 52 grams.

42

5.2 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - green trac lights

Figure 5.6: A car traveling at a constant speed of 11 m/s, stops at the red trac light and then accelerates until it reaches the same speed again

Figure 5.7: The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.6

43

5.2 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - green trac lights

Figure 5.8: A car traveling at 11 m/s accelerates in order to catch the green light

Figure 5.9: The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.8

44

5.2 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - green trac lights

Figure 5.10: A car traveling at a constant speed of 6 m/s, stops at the red trac light and then accelerates until it reaches the same speed again

Figure 5.11: The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.10

45

5.2 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - green trac lights

Figure 5.12: A car traveling at 6 m/s accelerates in order to catch the green light

Figure 5.13: The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.12

46

5.3 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - red trac lights

5.3

Experimental results of the decision algorithm - red trac lights

This section presents the experimental results obtained with the use of the algorithm applied in case of red trac light, described in the previous chapter (see Design and Implementation, 4.2.1.2). The algorithm has also been used in two scenarios. In the rst scenario, a car traveling at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) approaches a red trac light color which will last for the next 20 seconds. The distance between the trac light and the car is 200 m. The algorithm predicts the speed and acceleration of the car until it passes the intersection and estimates the quantity of emissions in two possible situations: 1) the driver tries to reduce speed in order to avoid the red color (see Figure 5.14) and 2) the driver maintains a constant speed, stops and waits at the red light and then accelerates until the speed needed to avoid the red color (in the rst situation) is obtained (see Figure 5.16). The estimated quantity of emissions is illustrated in Figures 5.15 - for the rst situation ( 28 grams of CO2 ) and 5.17 - for the second situation ( 75 grams of CO2 ). Based on these results, the system advises the driver to reduce the speed (until 34 km/h ( 9.47 m/s) is reached) in order to avoid the red light color. By doing this, the driver could reduce the quantity of CO2 by 47 grams. In the second scenario, the same car, now traveling at the same speed (60km/h), approaches a red trac light color which, this time, will last for the next 40 seconds. As before, the algorithm predicts the speed and acceleration of the car until it passes the intersection and estimates the quantity of emissions in the two situations described earlier: 1) illustrated in Figure 5.14 and 2) shown in Figure 5.16. The estimated quantities of emissions for the two situations are shown in Figure 5.15 ( 46 grams of CO2 ) and Figure 5.17 ( 37 grams of CO2 ), respectively. Based on these results the system advises the driver not to reduce the speed, in the attempt to avoid the red light. If the driver complies with this suggestion, he/she would reduce the quantity of CO2 by 9 grams.

47

5.3 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - red trac lights

Figure 5.14: A car traveling at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) stops at the red trac light and then accelerates until it reaches the speed it would have needed to avoid the red color (which lasted for 20s), if possible

Figure 5.15: The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.14

48

5.3 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - red trac lights

Figure 5.16: A car traveling at at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) reduces speed to 34 km/h ( 9.47 m/s) in order to avoid stopping at the red light

Figure 5.17: The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.16

49

5.3 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - red trac lights

Figure 5.18: A car traveling at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) stops at the red trac light and then accelerates until it reaches the speed it would have needed to avoid the red color (which lasted for 40s)

Figure 5.19: The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.18

50

5.3 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - red trac lights

Figure 5.20: A car traveling at at 60 km/h ( 16.6 m/s) reduces speed to 15.3 km/h ( 4.25 m/s) in order to avoid stopping at the red light

Figure 5.21: The gases emitted by the car described in Figure 5.20

51

Conclusions
The purpose of this thesis was to describe a method to reduce car emissions using an intelligent transportation system. The method described here consists in using intelligent trac lights to minimize the number of stop-starts due to the red light and the vain accelerations to catch the green light (which are very frequent and are shown to inuence the emissions rate). The intelligent trac lights were used to periodically broadcast, for each road segment controlled, the current trac light color and the time until it will change. This information is used by the decision algorithm proposed in chapter three, Design and Implementation. The role of this algorithm is to help the driver to 1) avoid the red trac light or 2) catch the green trac light, if this is possible and also results in reducing the quantity of emitted gases. To decide if it is less fuel consuming to try to catch green/avoid red, by accelerating/decelerating in order to reach the needed speed, a method to predict the car movement was necessary. For this, we developed a simulator that uses the motion ecuation of a car to predict its speed and position at any time. The prediction of the movement of the car is the most challenging part of this project. To be able to simulate a specic drivers behaviour and know how the car is going to move in dierent situations, is a very dicult task, as many parameters must be taken into account (all the forces that act on the car - we have to know even the weather conditions, and the human factor - which complicates very much the algorithm and can ruin the results of the prediction). Although the results obtained in chapter four, Experimental Results and Analysis, are promising, the simulator was developed with many simplications: in determining the motion equation, just the x-axis was taken into account and the weather was ignored

52

5.3 Experimental results of the decision algorithm - red trac lights

(this means that the slopes and the curves of the roads were ignored - 3D maps are needed to obtain complete information about the roads), the human factor was much simplied (we assumed that, when accelerating, the driver increases the engines rpm by 150). In conclusion, much research and work must be done until a very accurate version of this application can be deployed on cars. When 3D maps appear, the only major problem that remains to be solved is the human factor. For this, we propose three solutions that must be reasearched: building an application that is capable to learn the behaviour of the driver using a history of his/her actions in dierent situations (the behaviour when approaching a curve, the rate of acceleration when approaching a slope, etc.) letting the driver congure the application according to his/her driving style letting the application inform the driver not only about the needed speed but also about how hard to push the throttle pedal by using, for example, fuzzy logic. Also, as future work, the integration with VNSim should be nished to enable testing the application on complete scenarios (the interference with other cars must be taken into account and VNSim already does that).

53

References
Akcelik, R. & Besley, M. (2003). Operating cost, fuel consumption, and emission models in aasidra and aamotion. 25th Conference of Australian Institutes of Transport Research. 24, 26 Bourg, D.M. (2002). Physics for Game Developers. OReilley. 3 Bureau, U.C. (2008). Topologically integrated geographic encoding and referencing system. US Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger, accesed 2009. 21 Gorgorin, C. (2006). Information dissemination in vehicular ad-hoc networks. University Politehnica of Bucharest, Diploma Thesis. 30 Gorgorin, C., Gradinescu, V., Diaconescu, R., Cristea, V. & Iftode, L. (2006). An integrated vehicular and network simulator for vehicular ad-hoc networks. Proceedings of the 20th European Simulation and Modelling Conference, Toulouse. 20 Gradinescu, V. (2006). Vehicle ad-hoc networks: Adaptive trac signal control. University Politehnica of Bucharest, Diploma Thesis. 23, 26, 30 Haworth, N. & Symmons, M. (2001). Driving to reduce fuel consumption and improve road safety. Proceedings Road Safety Research, Policing and Education Conference, Melbourne. 14 Ichimescu, A. (2008). Optimizarea tracului in aglomeratii urbane. University Politehnica of Bucharest, Diploma Thesis. 30

54

REFERENCES

Nadeem, T., Dashtinezhad, S., Liao, C. & Iftode, L. (2004). Tracview: Trac data dissemination using car-to-car communication. ACM Sigmobile Mobile Computing and Communications Review, Special Issue on Mobile Data Management, 8, 619. 23 Raya, M. & Hubaux, J.P. (2007). Securing vehicular ad hoc networks. Journal of Computer Security, IOS Press, 15, 619. 18

55