Shin KATO, Dr. Eng.

ITS Research

Digital Architecture Research Center

Development of Information Technology and Human Factors

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology ; AIST

The Research at The ITS Research of AIST

The History of the Work

The Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, where the current ITS Research was started, had been conducting the research on the automated driving systems of automobiles since the early 1960's. The system developed in 1960's employed an inductive cable system embedded in the roadway along the path of vehicles. The system could drive a vehicle at 100 km/h in 1967 on a test track.

The drawback of the inductive cable system is the heavy infrastructure that requires both large initial cost and running cost. In 1970's the laboratory developed an autonomous automated driving system with machine vision, which does not require the infrastructure. The machine vision detected the path for the vehicle. This was the first in the world system.

In addition, the laboratory was engaged in the national project of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry on a dynamic route guidance system, the Comprehensive Automobile Traffic Control System (CACS) in the 1970's. Since then, the group has been conducting research on ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) and, in particular, on the area of the Advanced Vehicle Control and Safety Systems (AVCSS).

In the year 2000, the research was summarized into the automated cooperative driving system, where a platoon of automated vehicles drove with a small inter-vehicle spacing while performing lane changing, merging from two platoons into a single platoon, and splitting from a single platoon to two platoons. The technologies for the cooperative driving include automated driving for lateral and longitudinal control and inter-vehicle communications with 5.8 GHz DSRC.

The former work of the ITS Research Group in Intelligent Systems Institute of AIST is focusing on driver-adaptive, traffic-adaptive, and environmental adaptive AVCSS. The "driver-adaptive" aims at appropriate and not-annoying, and the driver-adaptive AVCSS is tailored driver assistance systems for any driver including the elderly drivers, which intervenes the vehicle operation if necessary. The "traffic-adaptive" aims at being traffic flow adaptive and increasing the throughput of the roadways, and the "environmental-adaptive" aims at decreasing the environmental load. The technologies include:

Sensing: localization (DGPS, radio wave markers), lanes and roadways (machine vision), vehicles in the neighborhood and obstacles (laser radar, millimeter wave radar), traffic flow (machine vision),

Control: lateral control (steering), longitudinal control (speed, inter-vehicle spacing),

Communications: inter-vehicle communications (5.8 GHz, DSRC).

The Current Work

The current work of the ITS Research in Human-Centered Mobility Research Center of AIST is continuously focusing on driver-adaptive, traffic-adaptive, and environmental adaptive advanced vehicle systems including automated driving systems and driver assistance systems.

The technologies include:

Sensing: localization (DGPS, radio wave markers, Lidar, SLAM), lanes and roadways (machine vision), vehicles in the neighborhood and obstacles (Lidar, laser radar, millimeter wave radar, machine vision with AI), traffic flow (machine vision),

Control: lateral control (steering), longitudinal control (speed, inter-vehicle spacing),

Communications: inter-vehicle communications (5.8 GHz, DSRC),

Demonstration experiments: Last-mile mobility with automated driving systems using low speed electric vehicle and bus in Japan.