Interactive Mission Planning System of an Autonomous Vehicle Fleet that Executes Services

Automated solutions for executing services in urban areas have become a trend in the past years. Examples of such services are: package delivery, transportation, street cleaning, waste disposal or vegetation care. They are also part of new concepts of smart cities. The vision is to have a vehicle fleet that provides these services at demand of inhabitants or authorities in urban areas. These vehicles have the capability to drive autonomously and interact with other traffic participants in order to accomplish a specific task. An important aspect is the mission planning of the vehicles. We present a concept of an interactive planning and management of a vehicle fleet that executes requested service demands in urban areas and the interaction between the involved stakeholders. The service requester gets immediate response regarding their request and can track, change or cancel it with immediate adaption of the plan. The concept was implemented and the system was used a few months for delivery services during a real world laboratory in a new built district in Heilbronn (Germany), with about 800 inhabitants.