NAVIGATE: Connected Autonomous Vehicles & Intelligent Transportation Systems
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Delft University of Technology
Transportation systems play a key role in the quality of our daily life, since they are responsible for moving huge volumes of materials and goods, and passengers worldwide through ground (road, rail), air, and water. Transportation systems are mainly composed of 1) vehicles (e.g., vessels, trucks, trains, aircraft), 2) infrastructure (e.g., cranes, bridges, locks, traffic lights), and 3) logistics systems.
Vehicles and infrastructure of all transportation modes should cooperate and interact in a continuous, seamless way, where vehicles move loads, and the infrastructure facilitates the motion and operations of vehicles.
Decision-making in transportation systems takes place at different levels. At the strategic level, long-term decisions about infrastructure development, facility location and fleet selection are made. At the tactical level planning takes place like motion planning, collision avoidance, fleet deployment, routing and scheduling, load and infrastructure allocation. Finally, at the operational level, the actual movement of vehicles on the infrastructure takes place for serving transportation and logistics tasks with real-time changes and adaptations.
Aiming to ensure sustainability and safety, increase system efficiency, and reduce cost, there is a deep yearning in the transportation domain for intelligence and autonomy through the digitalization and automatization of all systems and at all transport levels. Loosely speaking, system intelligence can be considered as the ability to modify the system operation based on self-awareness and perception in an evolving, harsh environment. System autonomy embraces intelligence but also expresses the ability of a system to plan and make decisions. Autonomy and intelligence are enabled by the deployment of modern sensor technology (e.g., radars, lidars, GPS, cameras). In addition, information and communication technologies (ICT) allow one to implement software agents that execute sophisticated algorithms of automatic control, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
This summer school, NAVIGATE, will allow the participants to learn about the recent developments in methods for perception, trajectory optimization, motion planning, transport safety, sustainable logistics systems, connected autonomous vehicles, and operations. Two domains of transport applications will be considered, that are, road and maritime transport. The participants will be able to present their views and experiences during a poster session and a round table discussion.
NAVIGATE will cover the following topics:
- Sensors
- Perception
- Trajectory optimization and motion planning
- Logistics Systems
- Autonomous Vehicles & Operations
| Date | July 7 – July 10, 2025 |
| Location | Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (ME), Delft University of Technology |
| Organized by | Transport and Mobility Theme, ME Faculty |
| Costs | 150 EUR |
| Registration Deadline | May 15, 2025 |
| Max number of participants | 50 |
| Target group | PhD students from Dutch Universities and Tand International PhD Students and Postdoctoral Researchers |
If you have questions about the school, contact the school coordinator, Dr. Vasso Reppa