Gábor Orosz

Traffic jams: dynamics and control

This introductory paper reviews the current state-of-the-art scientific methods used for modelling, analysing and controlling the dynamics of vehicular traffic. Possible mechanisms underlying traffic jam formation and propagation are presented from a dynamical viewpoint. Stable and unstable motions are described that may give the skeleton of traffic dynamics, and the effects of driver behaviour are emphasized in determining the emergent state in a vehicular system. At appropriate points, references are provided to the papers published in the corresponding Theme Issue.

Subcritical Hopf bifurcations in a car-following model with reaction-time delay

A nonlinear car-following model of highway traffic is considered, which includes the reaction-time delay of drivers. Linear stability analysis shows that the uniform flow equilibrium of the system loses its stability via Hopf bifurcations and thus oscillations can appear. The stability and amplitudes of the oscillations are determined with the help of normal-form calculations of the Hopf bifurcation that also handles the essential translational symmetry of the system. We show that the subcritical case of the Hopf bifurcation occurs robustly, which indicates the possibility of bistability. We also show how these oscillations lead to spatial wave formation as can be observed in real-world traffic flows.

Dynamics on Networks of Cluster States for Globally Coupled Phase Oscillators

Systems of globally coupled phase oscillators can have robust attractors that are heteroclinic networks. We investigate such a heteroclinic network between partially synchronized states where the phases cluster into three groups. For the coupling considered there exist 30 different three-cluster states in the case of five oscillators. We study the structure of the heteroclinic network and demonstrate that it is possible to navigate around the network by applying small impulsive inputs to the oscillator phases. This paper shows that such navigation may be done reliably even in the presence of noise and frequency detuning, as long as the input amplitude dominates the noise strength and the detuning magnitude, and the time between the applied pulses is in a suitable range. Furthermore, we show that, by exploiting the heteroclinic dynamics, frequency detuning can be encoded as a spatiotemporal code. By changing a coupling parameter we can stabilize the three-cluster states and replace the heteroclinic network...

Hopf Bifurcation Calculations in Delayed Systems with Translational Symmetry

Abstract The Hopf bifurcation of an equilibrium in dynamical systems consisting of n equations with a single time delay and translational symmetry is investigated. The Jacobian belonging to the equilibrium of the corresponding delay-differential equations always has a zero eigenvalue due to the translational symmetry. This eigenvalue does not depend on the system parameters, while other characteristic roots may satisfy the conditions of Hopf bifurcation. An algorithm for this Hopf bifurcation calculation (including the center-manifold reduction) is presented. The closed form results are demonstrated for a simple model of cars following each other along a ring.

Controlling biological networks by time-delayed signals

This paper describes the use of time-delayed feedback to regulate the behaviour of biological networks. The general ideas on specific transcriptional regulatory and neural networks are demonstrated. It is shown that robust yet tunable controllers can be constructed that provide the biological systems with model-engineered inputs. The results indicate that time delay modulation may serve as an efficient biocompatible control tool.

Connected cruise control: modelling, delay effects, and nonlinear behaviour

ABSTRACT Connected vehicle systems (CVS) are considered in this paper where vehicles exchange information using wireless vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. The concept of connected cruise control (CCC) is established that allows control design at the level of individual vehicles while exploiting V2V connectivity. Due to its high level of modularity the proposed design can be applied to large heterogeneous traffic systems. The dynamics of a simple CVS is analysed in detail while taking into account nonlinearities in the vehicle dynamics as well as in the controller. Time delays that arise due to intermittencies and packet drops in the communication channels are also incorporated. The results are summarised using stability charts which allow one to select control gains to maintain stability and ensure disturbance attenuation when the delay is below a critical value.

Stability and Frequency Response Under Stochastic Communication Delays With Applications to Connected Cruise Control Design

In this paper we investigate connected cruise control in which vehicles rely on ad hoc wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication to control their longitudinal motion. Intermittencies and packet drops in communication channels are shown to introduce stochastic delays in the feedback loops. Sufficient conditions for almost sure stability of equilibria are derived by analyzing the mean and covariance dynamics. In addition, the concept of

Designing the Dynamics of Globally Coupled Oscillators

n\sigma

Decomposing the dynamics of heterogeneous delayed networks with applications to connected vehicle systems

string stability is proposed to characterize the input–output response in steady state. The stability results are summarized using stability charts in the plane of the control gains and we demonstrate that the stable regimes shrink when the sampling time or the packet drop ratio increases. The mathematical tools developed allow us to design controllers that can achieve plant stability and string stability in connected vehicle systems despite the presence of stochastically varying delays in the control loop.

DESIGNING NETWORK MOTIFS IN CONNECTED VEHICLE SYSTEMS: DELAY EFFECTS AND STABILITY

A method for designing cluster states with prescribed stability is presented for coupled phase oscillator systems with all-to-all coupling. We determine criteria for the coupling function that ensure the existence and stability of a large variety of clustered configurations. We show that such criteria can be satisfied by choosing Fourier coefficients of the coupling function. We demonstrate that using simple trigonometric and localized coupling functions one can realize arbitrary patterns of stable clusters and that the designed systems are capable of performing finite state computation. The design principles may be relevant when engineering complex dynamical behavior of coupled systems, e.g. the emergent dynamics of artificial neural networks, coupled chemical oscillators and robotic swarms. Subject Index: 034, 044, 054, 055