No abstract

Controlling the vehicle traffic in large networks remains an important challenge in urban environments and transportation systems. Autonomous vehicles are today considered as a promising approach to deal with traffic control. In this paper, we propose a synchronization-based intersection control mechanism to allow the autonomous vehicle-agents to cross without stopping, i.e., in order to avoid congestions (delays) and energy loss. We decentralize the problem by managing the traffic of each intersection independently from others. We define control agents which are able to synchronize the multiple flows of vehicles in each intersection, by alternating vehicles from both directions. We present experimental results in simulation, which allow to evaluate the approach and to compare it with a traffic light strategy. These results show the important gain in terms of time and energy at an intersection and in a network.

In real-world multi-agent systems, as in the context of the automatic transportation of goods, autonomous vehicles can face unexpected events like the failure of a vehicle, the presence of obstacles on the road, etc. Such events can generate first local congestions, and then, if they persist, global phenomena and complex traffic congestions (such as traffic jams). We want to manage space sharing conflicts at the local level, when they appear, to allow a quick (real-time) regulation, i.e., without requiring to re-plan the routes of all involved agents. Our approach relies on reactive coordination between vehicles using simple interactions between neighboring agents, using perceptions and little or no communication. We consider in particular a scenario where two queues of vehicles share a single lane, describing the model of the network as well as the agents, and proposing simple coordination rules that only involve the two vehicles at the front of each queue. We then conduct experiments that allow the analysis and the comparison of the proposed self-regulation rules.