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Autonomous Ground Vehicles (Ozguner, U., et al; 2011) [Book review]

Article  in  IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine · January 2012

DOI: 10.1109/MITS.2012.2189993

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BO OK R E V I E W
A
utonomous vehicles will in
all probability dominate the
roads in the near future and
will provide the drivers with ex-
treme safety and assistance fea-
tures, such as computer vision/
sensing abilities, accident warn-
ings, safer lane changing, parking
assistance, collision avoidance
technologies, optimal routing, ve-
hicle to vehicle communication,
communication with ground in-
frastructures and others. An au-
tonomous vehicle is defined as “a
motor vehicle that uses artificial
intelligence, sensors and global
positioning system coordinates to
drive itself without the active in-
tervention of a human operator”.
Autonomous vehicles sense the
world through such techniques
as laser, radar, LIDAR, GPS, com-
puter vision (single camera or ste-
reo vision) and RFID. Advanced
control systems interpret the in-
formation to identify appropri-
ate navigation paths, as well as
obstacles and relevant signage.
Autonomous vehicles typically up-
date their maps based on sensory
input, so that they can navigate
through uncharted environments.
This very new and ambitious book
presents the most critical topics in
the field nowadays.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MITS.2012.2189993
Date of publication: 27 April 2012
IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MAGAZINE •
Review of the Book Autonomous Ground Vehicles
Title: Autonomous Ground
Vehicles
Authors: Umit Ozguner, Tankut
Acarman, and Keith Redmill
ISBN/Press/Year:
978-1-60807-192-0
Artech House 2011
Price: £85.00
WWW link: http://www.
artechhouse.com/Autonomous-
Ground-Vehicles/b/2225.aspx
Authored by U. Ozguner, T.
Acarman and K. Redmill, Autono-
mous Ground Vehicles is a very
ambitious book that provides a
fresh look in the field of intelligent
vehicles, focusing mainly on basic
autonomous control and feedback
24
for stopping and steering ground
vehicles. Throughout the text, ex-
amples are provided from the nu-
merous vehicles developed by the
authors and their experience from
participating in many national
and international projects, chal-
lenges and demonstration events.
The book covers sensors and sen-
sor fusion to percept vehicle mo-
tion and surrounding objects and
present how an autonomous ve-
hicle is an unmanned (in terms
of driving and decision process)
vehicle that can fulfill the human
transportation capabilities of a
traditional car and can also sense
its environment and navigate on
its own.
Autonomous Ground Vehicles
begins with an introductory chap-
ter that defines the background of
autonomy in cars, the components
of this autonomy and some notes
on the developments of the past
30 years. Chapter 2 is another in-
troductory chapter that provides
an overview of the dynamics and
control issues that are addressed
in more detail in following chap-
ters. It is a chapter useful for elec-
trical and computer engineering
students as it deals with the basic
dynamics and physics principles
behind application issues.
Chapter 3 describes a common
architecture applied in most au-
tonomous vehicles and a hybrid
• SUMMER 2012
 systems model as a common setting
for designing and analyzing high-level
control issues. The common architec-
ture provides a setting to understand
Reviewer: Christos-Nikolaos Anagnostopoulos
Christos-Nikolaos E. Anagnostopoulos was born in Athens, Greece
in 1975. He received his Mechanical Engineering Diploma from the
National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1998, and the
Ph.D. degree from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Dpt.,
NTUA in 2002.

Employment From 2008, he serves the University of the Aegean as Assistant

Professor in the Cultural Technology and Communication

Opportunities Department. He is a member of the Greek chamber of Engineers and

member of IEEE. His research interests include image processing,

Solicitation computer vision, neural networks and intelligence transportation systems applications. He has
published more than 110 papers in journals and conferences, in the above subjects as well as
other related fields in informatics. He also serves as associate editor for the IEEE Intelligent
Transportation Systems Magazine.
The IEEE Intelligent Transpor-
tation Systems Magazine is
soliciting any employment op- the software and hardware interac-
portunities that may be of inter- tions. The hybrid system framework
est to our readers. Opportunities provides a unified approach to model
could be academic, professional, the requisite “decision making” in
government, or otherwise. Since the autonomous vehicle. Chapter 4
this is a new column we are add- introduces the different sensor char-
ing to the ITS Magazine, there acteristics and their utilization and
is no fee for posting the first discusses sensor fusion approaches
employment opportunity with a for autonomous vehicles. This impor-
limit of 75 words. For further in- tant chapter presents vehicle inter-
formation, email ss.ieeemedia@ nal state sensing issues (such as GPS
ieee.org or go to http://advertise. and inertial measurements), external
ieee.org/recruitment/print. world sensing (radar, LIDAR, image
sensors), sensor fusion and estimation
of data, as well as helpful examples
involving off-road and on-road ve-
hicles. The chapter concludes by ad-
dressing the task of situational aware-
ness, which means knowledge of the
vehicle state, the prevailing driving
scenario and its surroundings.
Chapter 5 discusses and develops
the control issues that were intro-
duced in Chapter 2. Specifically, the
book overviews critical issues such as
cruise control, Antilock Brake Systems
(ABS), steering control, lane follow-
ing and control in parking scenarios.
Chapter 6 provides an overview and
introduction to maps based on GPS, the
use of those maps and the related path
planning issues that include examples
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MITS.2012.2189996
of heuristic search and cost functions
from real-world projects.
Chapter 7 is a synopsis of vehicle-
to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-in-
frastructure (V2I) communication
tasks and their relevance in autono-
mous vehicles. The chapter includes
advanced topics such as Vehicular
Ad hoc NETworks (VANETs), Mobile
Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) and
Dedicated Short Range Communica-
tions (DSRC). The chapter ends with
a very interesting section on poten-
tial applications in autonomous ve-
hicles that include adaptive cruise
control in vehicle platoons, traffic/
lane merging and urban driving
scenarios with Stop-and-Go traffic.
The authors conclude their book in
Chapter 8 that provides a discussion
with some open problems, indicating
that driver modeling is also a very
important parameter that is usu-
ally is not granted the appropriate
consideration.
Concluding this short review,
I have to notice that Autonomous
Ground Vehicles is a must-read title
for scientists, researchers and practi-
tioners in the field of Intelligent Ve-
hicles and Intelligent Transportation
Systems.

IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MAGAZINE • 26 • SUMMER 2012

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