A Unifying Framework for Self-Organization of Automated Vehicles

In this paper we present a unifying framework for self-organization of automated vehicles. The paper is motivated by the lack of clear vision amongst researchers and practitioners on what automation and autonomy bring from a broader-than-vehicle-level perspective and how they may lead to a self-organizing logistic system. Contrary to established literature, we do not focus on automation or autonomy from a single-vehicle perspective. Instead, we offer a broad perspective on how the mutual interaction of automated vehicles will impact logistic processes. Key in our approach is the interplay between the degree of autonomy of logistic systems and their degree of cooperativeness. On these two pillars we build a unifying framework distinguishing four fundamental categories of self-organizing automated vehicles. To illustrate the working of the framework in practice, we present four real-life case studies, one per each category. The usefulness of the framework established is two-fold: (i) it provides a common ground for researchers to position their work and to identify potential future directions for research and (ii) it serves as a practical and understandable starting point for practitioners on investigating how self-organization may affect their business and where their limited resources should be focused upon.