Architecture for Sustainable Transportation & Communities

In the previous Posts I’ve introduced many of the main concepts in my research and design work on Sustainable Transportation & Communities. Now we’re ready to get to the overall Architecture of the Autonomous portions.

• Autonomous Physical Implementations describe the Autonomous Vehicles, Autonomous Infrastructure, Techniques, and Autonomous Actors that implement the System.
• Autonomous Data and Computing describe the Data Structures, Computing, Communications and Techniques “running” on the Autonomous Physical Implementations to coordinate the System.
• Sustainable Communities describe a vision of the future that we can all build using these Autonomous Systems as infrastructure.

Key architecture features of Autonomous Physical Implementations are:

• Autonomous Vehicles are optimized to match load, travel mode, function, and other characteristics – this leads to a wide variety of different vehicles.
• Separating Mobility Platform, which provides all the motion capabilities, from the Carrier, which provides all the functions needed by the specific Contents (e.g., a Cargo Container), enables origin-to-destination transport without repacking.
• Vehicle Nesting enables switching among the ideal vehicles for each leg of a trip.
• Continuous Convoys & En Route Sequencing enable non-stop transport for each Container from origin to destination.
• Autonomous-Ways, or A-Ways, are the infrastructure that enables Autonomous Vehicles to travel with efficiency and safety – replacement for “highways”.
• Autonomous Actors are the many non-vehicular autonomous components that enable the autonomous future.

Key architecture features of Autonomous Data and Computing are:

• 4-Dimensional Global Map, 4-DGM, provides highly detailed location information, such as the edge of the road, potholes, signs and traffic lights, vehicles, pedestrians, even tables and chairs, including the times things occur, both history and future, such as schedules, reservations, plans, calendar, …
• Optimal Adaptive Routing & Scheduling, OARS, guides Autonomous Vehicles using all the 4-DGM data, allowing for probabilities, real-time information, preferences, ...  
• Cloudlet Computing & Communications enables nearby Autonomous Devices to communicate and jointly compute with each other with low delay, sharing the information to implement the 4-DGM, OARS, and Safety, Security & Privacy features.
• Autonomous Security, Privacy, & Safety encompasses the features built into the Autonomous Systems to make them safe for everyone. 

Sustainable Communities include:

• A vision of all aspects of the intentional communities enabled by the Autonomous Infrastructure.
• Examples in previous Posts include food-based communities, features for seniors, medications, toilets, and others – lots more to come for cities and other communities.
• Low-hanging fruit – near-term implementation opportunities that can be stand-alone Autonomous Islands,
• The transition to larger Autonomous Communities.

Next we’ll start exploring each of these areas in more detail.