Publication Cover
Transportation Letters
The International Journal of Transportation Research
Volume 14, 2022 - Issue 8
250
Views
3
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Research Article

Unmanned aerial vehicle path planning for traffic estimation and detection of non-recurrent congestion

, , &
Pages 849-862 | Published online: 24 Jul 2021
 

ABSTRACT

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide a novel means of extracting road and traffic information from video data. In particular, by analyzing objects in a video frame, UAVs can detect traffic characteristics and road incidents. Leveraging the mobility and detection capabilities of UAVs, we investigate a navigation algorithm that seeks to maximize information on the road/traffic state under non-recurrent congestion. We propose an active exploration framework that (1) assimilates UAV observations with speed-density sensor data, (2) quantifies uncertainty on the road/traffic state, and (3) adaptively navigates the UAV to minimize this uncertainty. The navigation algorithm uses the A-optimal information measure (mean uncertainty), and it depends on covariance matrices generated by a dual state ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). Our results indicate that targeted UAV observations aid in the detection of incidents under congested conditions where speed-density data are not informative.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Center for Advanced Multimodal Mobility Solutions and Education (CAMMSE) and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1636154.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [1636154].

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 61.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 273.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.