The Automated Vehicle Traffic Control Tower

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents and motivates the integration of automated vehicle traffic control towers (AVTCT) into transportation networks to support the operation of automated driving systems. Loosely analogous to air traffic control towers, the AVTCT provides a human-driven exception-handling layer to automated driving systems for safe operation in unexpected or uncertain, safety-critical scenarios.  In the thesis, a case-study of plausible scenarios is first presented that either pose difficulty for automated systems or require the supervision of human operators. An outline of the AVTCT concept and its different potential roles in the support of automated driving systems is then discussed.  Using reachability analysis, a concrete example from the case-study is formulated to show how the AVTCT would support an automated driving system that has reached an infeasibility in its automation. Finally, a demonstration of the example using an experimental implementation of the AVTCT and a scaledvehicle is presented.