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Global control of robotic highway safety markers: a real-time solution. (English) Zbl 1091.93536

Summary: This paper presents the design and implementation of a real-time solution for the global control of robotic highway safety markers. Problems addressed in the system are: \((1)\) poor scalability and predictability as the number of markers increases, \((2)\) jerky movement of markers, and \((3)\) misidentification of safety markers caused by objects in the environment.
An extensive analysis of the system and two solutions are offered: a basic solution and an enhanced solution. They are built respectively upon two task models: the periodic task model and the variable rate execution (VRE) task model. The former is characterized by four static parameters: phase, period, worst case execution time and relative deadline. The latter has similar parameters, but the parameter values are allowed to change at arbitrary times.
The use of real-time tasks and scheduling techniques solve the first two problems. The third problem is solved using a refined Hough transform algorithm and a horizon scanning window. The approach decreases the time complexity of traditional implementations of the Hough transform with only slightly increased storage requirements.

MSC:

93C85 Automated systems (robots, etc.) in control theory
93C95 Application models in control theory
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