Vinith Kumar Lakshmanan receives IFAAC Young Author Award

Vinith Kumar Lakshmanan, a visiting fellow at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) is the recipient of the Young Author Award which was presented during the 2022 IFAC AAC Conference.

The study he presented addresses the problem of finding the optimal energy-efficient speed profile of an electric Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) in an isolated un-signalized intersection. Cooperation is introduced amongst CAVs as the ability to share intentions. The study further explores if the cooperative nature of the CAVs helps increase energy benefits when compared to non-cooperating CAVs.

“Vinith's work focuses on finding trajectories for autonomous vehicles to navigate urban intersections that lead to the lowest possible energy utilization,” said Assistant Professor Stephanie Stockar who was part of the voting committee. “Traditional approaches for eco-driving trajectories separate the intersection into multiple zones and find portions of trajectories that will need to be combined. While this approach makes the problem enables easy analytical solutions, the results are sub-optimal and sometimes even unfeasible. Vinith’s approach allows for considering the intersection as a single zone while maintaining optimality. The approach was implemented and validated considering different level of cooperation in a simulation environment.

Vinith says that the recognition of his work is a boost in motivation to pursue more high-quality research.