Business Law Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Law Report - Essay Example ..8 3.2 Scenario†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦9 1. Introduction Promissory estoppel is an equitable doctrine that applies to contract law to enforce a promise that is unsupported by consideration. It involves a promise given by one of the parties to a contract, during its performance, not to insist to the terms of the original contract (Feinman, 1984). This doctrine mitigates the harshness of the common law which insists that any promise which is unsupported by a consideration cannot be enforced. In the law of contract, parties must furnish consideration to make the contract binding. Therefore the words ‘estopped’ means ‘prevented’ or precluded. It prevents a party to a contract from denying the truth of a promissory representation (Feinman, 1984). Lord Denning in Combe v Combe[1951] 2 KB 215 at 220defined the doctrine by stating that â€Å" the principle, as I understand it, is that, where one party has, by his words or conduct, made to the other a promise or assurance which was intended to affect the legal relations between them and to be acted on accordingly, then, once the other party has taken him at his word and acted on it, the one who gave the promise or assurance cannot afterwards be allowed to revert to the previous legal relations as if no such promise or assurance had been made by him, but he must accept their legal relations subject to the qualification which he himself has introduced, even though it is not supported in points of law by any consideration but only by his words†¦Ã¢â‚¬  2. Requirements of Promissory Estoppel This English position was first adopted in Australia by the High Court’s decision in Legione v Hateley(1983) 152 CLR 406. It sets some key ingredients for the application of the doctrine. First, there must be a pre-existing cont ract between the parties, which they seek to modify. Secondly, there must be a clear and unambiguous promise, which one party relies on as result of which they change their position and lastly, it must be inequitable to allow the promisor to go back on their promise. 2.1. Pre-existing Relationship There must be a legal relationship that existed between the parties. The parties ought to be in a continuing legal relationship, in the course of which, one of the parties agrees to the variation, and/or termination of the current one. Promissory estoppel cannot exist in a vacuum, and that it would only arise where there is an existing relationship between the parties.In most instances the existence of a relationship suffices from the existence of a contract (Boyer, 1952). In essence, the underlying contract must have been enforceable, and consideration for the subsequent agreement that is not required (Boyer, 1952). The requirement for the existence of a contract for the application of th e doctrine of estoppel was held not necessary in the Australian case of Waltons Stores (Interstate) Ltd v Maher[1988] HCA 7. The brief facts of the case were that Walton and Maher entered into a negotiation with regards to a lease of a property that was owned by Maher. They agreed that Maher would demolish a building that was in existence and build a new one which Walton would then occupy. The parties entered principally into an

News Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

News - Research Paper Example While marketing to teenagers has been predominant, reporting of marketing practices via social media has substantially exacerbated in today’s world. Social media has provided business enterprises with a platform where they can directly interact with potential consumers, and subsequently lure them into buying. As a result, social media has redesigned the mode of doing business for many enterprises. Businesses identify their targets and implement strategies to influence these targets. In so doing, a relationship is established based on how convinced the targets are. For instance, marketing that targets teenagers has been reported to assess and evaluate the factors that influence teenage buying behaviors (Bax, 2012). Social media has emerged as a substantial influencing factor in determining teenage consumption trends for differentiated products and services, ranging from edibles to clothing or even luxury

Personal Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Personal Development - Essay Example essed, I have had the chance to increase the amount of time that I spend with the instructors in terms of learning after class and made sure that I went over all the material that was delivered in class. In the event that there was a concept or point that needed to be clarified, I made the resolve to talk to the instructors before the next class so that I may understand the concept and catch up with the rest of the group. Social development has also been a considerable part of my personal development as I made the discovery that I was lacking soft skills in comparison to other people. The significance of these skills in the school and work environment cannot be ignored, therefore, I had to develop them so that I could avoid cases of skill mismatching in school as well as the workplace. (Zenger and Folkman 137). Improving interactions with other individuals was among the main goals of my personal development and as the semester progressed, I had to make changes on the ways I related to people through allowing more time for interactions. I was able to achieve this goal through seeking an elective position as a representative of one of the clubs in school and the acquisition of the leadership position was critical for the developing my leadership skills. Being elected for this post has also assisted me to enhance my communication skills as am tasked with communicating the needs and issues of the members of the club to the leaders of the club. This has also assisted me to become a better listener while developing more focus in my activities since I have other responsibilities apart from my schoolwork. I had also intended to better my social interaction both within and outside the school and among the most effective ways, that I chose to achieve this was through more involvement in extra-curricular programs. Settling on a particular activity was not easy as there were numerous programs to choose from, nevertheless, I had an awareness of the significance of this and

Germany and US Stakeholders Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Germany and US Stakeholders - Essay Example Through this collaboration, they would be able to achieve two-fold objectives. Firstly, the employees and board representatives would be able to safeguard own interests and pursue their objectives. Secondly, when their objectives are achieved, the larger organizational aims is fulfilled as well (Petrick, 2010). In the stakeholder capitalism model, an employee representative is given a seat on the board of directors. The major responsibility of the employee representative is to communicate to each and every stakeholder about concerns of the employees. The presence of employee representatives within the board also enables the top-level management to establish a robust corporate governance framework for facilitating smooth operation of the organization. By working in collaboration with each other, the employee representative and the management representative can make sure that workflow within the organization is smooth. In addition, they are able to secure achievement of operational efficiency (Fauver&Fuerst, 2006). Achieving operational excellence is one of the most important objectives that organizations aim to attain. Operational efficiency can be facilitated only if the top-level management possesses very good knowledge about the workforce available to the firm. Such knowledge would allow the managers to allocate resources effectively according to the skills and experience of the workforce as well as the operational objective. By allocating resources effectively, managers are able to achieve operational efficiency and therefore maximize value for the shareholders. However, only satisfying the needs of the shareholders do not guarantee a company’s success. The management also has to be concerned about employee needs. They need to identify and understand interests of the employees, as they are perhaps one of the most important stakeholders (Faccio, Lang,& Young, 2001). In order to meet the employee needs,

Methods to Conserve Energy Essay Example for Free

Methods to Conserve Energy Essay Using natural energy resources doesnt necessarily mean you will conserve any energy, yet we do advise every household to research the possibility of implementing natural energy resources to influence their home power supply. This will conserve the fossil fuels we are currently consuming at an alarming rate. Many little things can be done in an attempt to conserve energy in the home. It is knowing how to do these little energy conservation processes that many people do not know about, understand, or Just dont care. Another way relating to how we can conserve energy is to ensure whenever we have finished using appliances that may have a light on them (such as a standby light), we switch the appliance off, or unplug after use. Little things can make a big difference in conserving energy around the home, and this is especially true for dishwashers, washing machines and dryers. Modern dishwashers have energy saving wash cycles, we strongly advise the use of such features, washing machines can be set to lower temperature washes, when sed with the right washing powder, and a dryer, well if you own a dryer, get rid of it and dry your washing naturally on a washing line. Hybrid cars can make a difference to your carbon footprint, and can help you save energy. No, they will not eliminate carbon emissions from their exhausts, yet they will greatly reduce the amount of carbon you pump into the air each year. The only reason you should need a 44 vehicle is if you live in a rough terrain area, or constantly snowy area. When you choose your next car, be sure to check the miles per gallon to see how fficient your car will be, this not only helps the environment but it saves you money on fuel too. When conserving energy, we can also look to our heating methods, why not reduce your heating thermostat or radiators by only 1 degree for a lengthy time, and compare your heating bill? If you recycle more, you will be helping to conserve energy put into making new versions of what you have recycled, and this also reduces the burden on landfill sites and incinerators which are not good for the environment

Advantages Of Human Resource Planning Business Essay

Advantages Of Human Resource Planning Business Essay Human resource planning is really important that without this all planning will finally end up as a mere guess work. Even if the predictions or forecast is not always successful, it is still needed because the forecasts can be quite useful which will give a basis. Upon this basis it is able to avoid ad hoc problems to an extent. Therefore human resource planning should be articulated along with the organisational planning. A dearth of particular category of employee or particular kind skills will affect the organisation in achieving its goals. Rapid changes in technology, marketing, management etc., will result in need of particular category an skilled persons. Changes within an organization in its design and structure will affect manpower demand. Demographic changes like the altering profile of the manpower in terms of age, sex, education etc. The Government policies in regard to reservation, child labour, working conditions etc. Different labour laws affecting the demand and supply of labour. Pressure from trade unions, politicians etc. Advantages of Human Resource Planning: Human Resources Planning (HRP) expects not just the needed quality and quantity of employees instead decide the accomplish plan for all the occasions of human resource management .The major advantages of Human resource planning are: It assures the corporate plan of the firm. The HRP elucidates doubts and alters to the upper limit potential and enables the organization to have right kind of people at right time in right place. It allows background for progress and growth of employees through training, development etc. It aids in anticipating the cost of salary increasing, improved benefits etc. It also helps to predict the cost of pay offs, incentives and all other cost of human resources which facilitates the formulation of budgets in an organization. To forecast the changes in abilities, aptitude and attitude of personnel. It results in the advancement of different origins of human resources to encounter the organizational goals and objectives. It also aids in taking measures to amend human resource shares in the form of enhanced output ,business turnover etc It facilities the control of all the functions, operations, contribution and cost of human resources Planning as an organisational business strategy: Planning process in a strategic way is often accomplished by networking with in and outside the organisation. The focus is therefore on strengthening the networking with the internal human resource professionals and external human resource persons which will be rooted in sharing information, technology, tools necessary for planning and development of personnel. The outcome depends on effective implementation of the developed tools and resources needed. Out of these a sustainable and feasible strategy has to be formulated. The most important thing to be noted here is that the strategy formulated should be articulated with the overall business strategy of the organisation. For this they will consult different human resource managers and all the line managers in the organisation. In order to ensure highest possible utilization of the tools they will work in close conjunction with the managers. This will be aimed in creating a sound personnel data base and tools for the line managers. Long term planning for success in short term: Though long term planning is advised the daily operational pressures would cause the long term planning to give way to short term planning. This might cause the plans ultimately to be less successful. It can be very expensive too. Quite lot of lead time is needed for recruiting, developing talented personnel. This will require long term economic plans. For a successful planning, all the factors need to be interconnected. The impact of short term planning will be to rely on current work force for all the organisational activities. But so as to achieve long term goals of an organisation it must have some changes made in the current human resources. It should be able to foresee the future needs of the organisation even in worst external scenario. Now the focus has been shifted from long range planning to strategic planning. What long range means is to predict for a particular time in future the amount of demand of an organisations services and to analyse in what area that demand will occur in future. This is often used to determine the demand in certain situations like expansion, adding of more services to the existing situation, capital needs etc. But later when the industries became volatile and the external scenario became dynamic the long range planning was replaced by strategic planning. The idea behind long range planning is that the firm will continue its rendering of services so as to match with its demand. But the idea underlying behind the strategic planning is that there are lot of economic, social, political, technological and competitive changes happening. By understanding all these changes to analyse whether the organisation will be able to provide services that would meet these challenges or whether it should m ove to further new services and products. Though it will take considerable time to evolve a strategy, time span is not the important focus here. It might even take generations to evolve and implement a strategy. Therefore it is better to use long term and short term to describe the time that it will take for a strategy to implement. CHAPTER 2 Literature Review: Human beings are the most important assets in hospitals. Machines and other equipments which are integral parts of delivering health care require the human touch, expertise, and commitment for their full utilization and application in delivery of health care. Therefore planning of human resources is the key to any health care provision. The objective of human resource (HR) policy is to attract, recruit, retain and develop competent personnel and Create a continuously learning health care organisation. (B.Ray) Human resource planning is the projection of the number of people required and the type of people in terms of skill mix required for the organisation so as to achieve the desired goals and objectives of the organisation. This means that human resource planning is an important add on to the strategic plans. But evidence shows that the connecting bridge between human resource planning and strategic management is not stressed in practice (Baird et al.1983, De sancto-1983; Ohan Rynes-1983). Reason to this non utilisation is found in focus of human resource planning literature. Almost all the research focuses on human resource supply and demand forecasting (Zedeck Casci-1984). Extra care may be taken in developing a statistical model of manpower planning, but little care is given to gaining managerial acceptance of such plans. Thus there exist a huge gap between available techniques and their use because important organisational realities are not projected in to the models (Zedeck Casc io,1984) Rapid environmental change, globalization, innovations to provide competitive products and services, changing customer and investor demands have become the standard backdrop for organizations. To compete effectively, firms must constantly improve their performance by reducing costs, enhancing quality, and differentiating their products and services. To improve firm performance and create firm competitive advantage, HR should focus on better and new set of priorities. These newly set priorities should be more organisational, business and strategic oriented and less focussed towards old traditional HR functions like staffing, training, appraisal and compensation. Business strategic priorities include team-based job designs, flexible workforces, quality improvement practices, employee empowerment and incentive compensation (Jing and Huang 2005). SHRM was designed to diagnose firm strategic needs and planned talent development which is required to implement a competitive strategy and achieve operational goals (Huselid et al., 1997). Apart from report proof on the strategic importance of human resource planning, studies of organisation practices give an indication of its arousing grandness for strategic applications. A study interviewed human resource executives from 137 companies to describe the reasons why their companies were following human resource forecasting, which an important part of human resource is planning. The most important three reasons were for bringing up their human resources (77.6 percent), for avoiding personnel shortages (73.1 percent), and to collect information for decisions (73.1 percent). Another set of reasons for human resource forecasting included the following: optimistic action efforts (63.6 percent), budgeting (62.1 percent), and career planning (59.7 percent)

Smart Transport System Based Upon Autonomous Road Vehicles

Smart Transport System Based Upon Autonomous Road Vehicles INTRODUCTION People have a high reliance on car for their daily travel to work, shopping, tour and many other places [1]. More than 50% of worlds population lives in cities and more vehicles are on the road causing congestion problems and accidents. Therefore, there is a need for more safe and efficient means of transportation. The new technologies are replacing decade old transportation frameworks and operators with computerization and automation. Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is an innovative method that utilizes sensors movements, artificial intelligence, and human management together which will help the autonomous vehicle to drive without human intervention [2]. Autonomous vehicles will be seen soon on our roads communicating with nearby vehicles and warn each other by understanding the conditions ahead. Many cars, for example, the Tesla Model S and the Volvo XC90 has already started including propelled self-driving capacities, and this is expected to increase in coming years [3]. In this paper two use case scenarios of autonomous vehicles are discussed. The first use case discusses about an autonomous vehicle valet parking. Parking a vehicle is considered as one of the difficult task in driving. This includes finding the parking slot and park without collision. The proposed system will allow the driver to leave the vehicle when he/she reaches the destination and the vehicle will park itself in a parking slot. The second use case discusses an autonomous vehicle that can drive without human intervention in an unknown environment. The use cases included are obstacle avoidance, backward moving and overtaking. 2.USE CASE SCENARIOS 2.1 AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE VALET PARKING The number of vehicles on road is increasing rapidly causing congestion problems and pollutions. One of the main reasons for this is lack of car parking and time consumed to find the parking slots. This paper discusses the driving and parking of an autonomous vehicle to a car parking slot without human intervention. An autonomous valet parking will allow the driver to leave the vehicle when he/she reaches the destination and will park the vehicle in a parking slot. The sensors will sense obstacles in its way and will steer around them to avoid collision. It will also notify the driver after parking and locking the door automatically through an app. The proposed system will help the driver who is in a hurry to attend a meeting or watch movie, who doesnt want his/her time to waste checking for parking area and to drive and park there. There are three systems in the vehicle for the autonomous vehicle valet parking [6]. (i) Server System The server system will generate the different driving path to the nearest parking slot and will provide it to the driver through the mobile application. The driver can select the preferred path and vehicle will drive through that path. (ii) Mobile System The driver will be able to monitor the vehicle and check whether it is finding any difficulty to reach the parking slot. The vehicle will also notify the driver once when it has reached the parking slot. (iii) Vehicle Control System The control system will generate the control signals such as steering control, gear change, brakes and speed control required for the movement of the vehicle through the provided path. It should also generate control signals to help the car park in the provided slot. Figure 1: Autonomous vehicle parking system 2.1.1 DESIGN ANALYSIS AND ALGORITHM 2.1.1.a. PARKING SLOT SELECTION Once the driver has reached the destination the driver should request for the nearest parking and reserve the parking slot. The algorithm for this is shown in figure 1.1 [6]. Step 1: Driver request for the parking guidance. The parking slot availability in the parking garage should be updated every time in the data base. The parking slot can detect whether it is occupied with vehicle or not by using an IR sensor in the parking slot. The IR sensors will be connected to micro-controllers. The microcontrollers will communicate to the central server system using ESP8266 which contains the data base of the parking slot availability. ESP8266 is a low-cost Wi-Fi chip which will give micro-controller access to communicate with the Wi-Fi network. Along with the number of free parking lots, parking cost in different parking garage will also be stored in the database. The parking guidance is requested by the driver using the navigation system which will be embedded with sim cards inside the vehicle. BMW already have sim card embedded cars [8]. There will be GPS module inside the navigation system which will give the current location of the car. This location of the vehicle, will help to find the nearest parking fa cilities near it. The distance and time to reach each parking garage are calculated by the already programmed navigation device. It will also provide the parking fare for each parking garage. The driver can then select the appropriate parking slot based on his convenience. Step 2: Reserve the parking slot Once the parking slot has been selected by the driver, it should be reserved otherwise there are chances for the parking slot to be occupied by some other car before the vehicle reaches the selected slot. The central server system should be updated once the driver has reserved parking slot. The reservation should be done using the number plate of the vehicle. Sometimes, there might be more than one reservation request for the same parking slot at the same. So, there are chances to get the reservation declined for other customers. In that case the driver can select another parking slot. The vehicle can also go to the parking slot without reservation as well. But there will be a risk of the parking slot to be occupied before the vehicle arrives the parking slot. Step 3: Start the navigation to the parking slot. Once the parking slot has been selected by the driver, he/she can leave the car and the car will navigate to the selected parking slot. Figure 1.1. Algorithm for parking slot selection 2.1.1.b. PARKING PATH FOLLOWING Once the parking slot has been selected the next step is to guide the vehicle to the parking slot. In this paper [6], a graph data structure is used, which will generate driving path using 4D kinematics (i, j, ÃŽÂ ¸, R). The i and j represents the centre co-ordinates of the vehicle and ÃŽÂ ¸ is the heading angle value of the vehicle. To avoid the obstacles while following the path to the parking slot laser scanner sensors (LMS15) are used. These sensors can see the obstacles within 40 m distance and an angular range of 0-1900. The sensors are fitted on both sides in the front and rear side of the vehicle. The obstacle avoidance path is generated by the server system. The figure 1.3. [6] shows the obstacle detecting and avoiding path. Figure 1.3. Obstacle detecting and avoiding path [6] The path generated by the server system consists of location of the vehicle and its heading angle value (ÃŽÂ ¸). The vehicle control system will generate signals to control the steering of the vehicle depending on the heading angle value and location of the vehicle. The steering angle should be calculated for this. The formula for steering angle is shown below [6]. ÃŽÂ ¸s = ÃŽÂ ¸3 ÃŽÂ ¸2  ­- ÃŽÂ ¸1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2 ÃŽÂ ¸s = Steering angleÃŽÂ ¸3 = lateral error angle of vehicle location  Ã‚  Ã‚   ÃŽÂ ¸2 = look-ahead way point heading angle  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ÃŽÂ ¸1 = vehicle heading angle Figure 1.4. [6] shows the driving path followed by the vehicle and the location of the vehicle. Figure 1.4. Driving path followed by the vehicle [6] The speed will also be controlled by the control system. The speed will be reduced to 8 km/hr once the car has entered the parking garage. The car will be notified when it reaches the parking garage by the GPS module installed in the navigation system. The laser scanner sensors can detect the moving obstacles as well. When the vehicle has detected the moving object (e.g. pedestrian) it will stop and wait until it has crossed the road. 2.1.1.c. PARKING AT THE SELECTED PARKING SLOT The next step after reaching the parking slot is the parking at the selected slot. The vehicle control systems consist of two levels [7]. 1. Low level control Low level control is the control of motion which includes steering wheels control, speed control and moving in a proposed distance. 2. High level control High level control is computer vision based control. A trajectory path is formed showing the vehicle direction to park it in the selected slot. To describe the car parking, bi-cycle model is used [7]. This model is commonly used to describe four wheeled vehicles. Rear drive wheel of this model cannot be rotated. To control the vehicle movement the front wheel will be rotated about the vertical axis following the trajectory path. It is assumed that the vehicle is moving on a horizontal and flat surface. Figure 1.5. Bi-cycle model of four wheeled vehicles The figure 1.5. shows the bi-cycle model of four wheeled vehicles [7]. The co ordinate system is represented as V, where x and y represent the co-ordinate points in that system. L= distance between the front and rear wheels ÃŽÂ ³ = steering angle ÃŽÂ ¸ = angle between xv and x v = velocity of the vehicle ICR instantaneous centre of rotation of the vehicle Parking of the car can be done in two ways. [7] 1.Parallel parking method. 2.Perpendicular parking method. Parallel parking method A precise path should be generated to minimize the parking area. The vehicle should move along two arcs created by the high level control without straight-line section between them. A maximum rotational angle of the steering wheels is required to achieve this. The figure 1.6. shows the parallel parking method [7]. Figure 1.6. Parallel parking method [7] The circle radius is calculated using the steering angle (ÃŽÂ ³). Circle radius (R1) = L2tgÃŽÂ ³ Ls1 and Ls2 are the safety boundaries, so the vehicle will not hit the front and back corner of the vehicle while parking. L1, L2, L3 and L4 are the boundary dimensions. The trajectory parking length (S)can be calculated to park the vehicle in the parking slot without colliding on the obstacles. The formula to obtain the trajectory parking length is given below. S = Ls1 + L1 + L2 + L3 + L4 + Ls2 Perpendicular parking method Perpendicular parking method is almost like the parallel parking method. This method reduces the parking area required for parking. The figure 1.7. shows the perpendicular parking method. Figure 1.7. Perpendicular parking method [7] The centre axel wheel should steer along the arc with the radius (R2) value given below to park in a safe condition. R2 = When vehicle reaches point A,for successful completion of parking, the steering wheels should be controlled by the steering. The gear should be in reverse gear and continue until the safe region. There are safety zones LS as in the parallel parking method. The trajectory parking length (S)can be calculated to park the vehicle in the parking slot without colliding on the obstacles. The formula to obtain the trajectory parking length is given below. S = R1 + L2 + LS + 2.1.1.d. NOTIFYING THE DRIVER AFTER PARKING After the car, has been parked in the parking slot, the driver should be notified that the car is safely parked. The sim card embedded in the system will help to notify the driver through SMS or mobile app that it has arrived the parking slot safely. This will help the driver to track the vehicle and ensure that it has reached the parking slot safely. 2.1.2 CHALLENGES AND DESIGN ISSUES IN THE PROPOSED SYSTEM Challenges (i) One of the main challenges in the proposed system is that the driver can only access the parking garages which has been saved in the central server system. (ii) In the proposed system, the vehicle will not come to pick the driver. He/she should go to the parking slot to find the car. This can be included in the future development. Design Issues (i) Sometimes GPS might fail to work in that case the autonomous car might fail to find its direction. (ii) Infrared sensors are expensive and sometimes fail to work due to temperature change. 2.1.3. VEHICLES THAT HAS BEEN USING AUTOMATED VEHICLE VALET PARKING Using digital mapping technology, BMW i3 is about to launch their new car [9] that can park in multi-storey parking garages. This fully autonomous vehicle will drive until it detects a free parking space. Their new Remote Valet Parking Assistant will parks the i3 without any driver assistance. The new car can also detect the moving obstacles and falsely parked car using its LiDAR sensors and drive accordingly without colliding with the obstacles. The car will not notify the driver it has reached the parking slot is one of the drawback in their features. 2.2 AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE NAVIGATION IN UNKNOWN ENVIRONMENT. A fully automatic vehicle should be able to drive by itself and for that it should sense, control, observe and react to its environment. This paper describes an autonomous vehicle that can drive without human intervention in an unknown environment. The use cases included are obstacle avoidance, backward moving and overtaking. The car will reach its destination by avoiding obstacles and following the path lane. A fuzzy logic control technology is used in this paper which will receive the required information from the sensors which will sense the obstacles in its way and the environmental changes. A GPS module is also used to track the position of the vehicle. The system will also control the speed, brake and steering effectively. 2.2.1 DESIGN ANALYSIS AND ALGORITHM The proposed system is divided into two units [5] Fuzzy logic control unit Computer vision unit. The block diagram of the proposed unit is shown in the figure 2.1. [5]. Figure 2.1. Block diagram of the proposed system [5] 2.2.1.a. FUZZY LOGIC CONTROL UNIT Autonomous cars are very complex to design. In this system, fuzzy logic is used to generate logical control signals from the input analog signals. Fuzzy logic is widely used in artificial intelligence. There are many alternative approaches such as genetic algorithm and neural network, but fuzzy logic has the merit that, it can be easily understood by the human operators. The block diagram of the fuzzy logic control unit is shown in figure 2.2. Figure 2.2. Fuzzy Logic Control Unit [4] The proposed system consists of two ultrasonic sensors for recognising the obstacles and measuring the distance between the obstacle and vehicle. Ultrasonic sensors produce ultrasonic waves, which will not produce any sound pollution/environmental pollution. Its also inexpensive. A H-Bridge is used to control the steering motor and the back motor. Webcam is used to see and follow the road lane path. The steering angle is measured and controlled by a potentiometer. The GPS receiver senses the position of the vehicle and is given to the microcontroller. This will help the micro-controller to know whether the vehicle has reached its destination or not. The steering and speed commands are combined and based on this the vehicle will move through the lane. The speed of the vehicle is the most important part while driving. The speed of the vehicle depends on many external factors such as environmental condition, road condition and car condition. For a normal autonomous car, it should have an auto-braking system, auto-speed control system and auto-steering system. These systems depend on different factors like environmental condition, car condition, road condition and so on. The fuzzy logic control unit will control the speed, brake, and steering based on these factors. The figure 2.3. [4] below shows the fuzzy logic controller controlling the systems based on the environmental condition and car condition. Figure 2.3. Fuzzy Logic Controller [4] Auto-braking System The auto-braking system is provided in autonomous car to avoid collision. The ultrasonic sensors will sense the distance between the obstacle and the car and if it is not in a safe distance the car will either stop or reduce the speed. The normal speed limit is set as 0 60 km/hr and the minimum distance between the car and the obstacle is maintained at 5 10 m. This is selected as per the traffic safety authorities. Auto- speed System Speed of the car is controlled on various factors such as environmental condition and car condition. Environmental condition and car condition will be between the range shown below and the car should choose the speed accordingly. Environmental Conditions: Rains falling: (0 200) mm. Winds Speed: (0 150) km/h. Rain sensors are used to sense the rain. The sensors can tell when it is raining depending on the rain drops falling on the wind shield depending on the light reflected. If there are more rain drops on the wind shield less light will be reflected to the rain sensor. Car Condition: Weight (including passengers): (1600 1900) kg. Engine Heat: (-25 65) à ; c. A weight sensor can be used in the seats so that it will sense how many passengers are there in the seat and the vehicle can control the speed. All these factors are given a rating between 0 and 10 [4]. If the conditions are bad, the rating will be between 0-3 and if the conditions are good, then the rating will be between 7-10. The micro-controller will be pre-programmed in such a way that it will be indicated when its raining, or when the air content in the tire is less and the speed of the car will be controlled according to that. Auto-Steering control The steering control is the main part of the autonomous car. The steering is controlled in such a way that; it will follow the trajectory or path to the destination generated by the computer vision unit. Obstacle Avoidance The main feature that should be incorporated in an autonomous vehicle is obstacle avoidance to avoid collision. There are two type of obstacles static and moving obstacles. The obstacles are sensed by the ultrasonic sensors which are connected at the right and left side of the vehicle at an angle of +45o and -45o. The distance is measured using fuzzification. The fuzzy sets used are adjacent, medium and far. The range is set between 25 m and 85 m and is determined by the sensor and the dimension of vehicle [4]. Any measured value by the sensor that is below 25 m is set as minimum value and any measured value exceeding 85 m is set as maximum value. To determine in which fuzzy set (near, medium or far) the measured sensor value belong to is determined using triangular membership function. The equation for that is given below [4]. The speed control and steering control signals are got as an output from the controller which are then given to the steering motor and back motor. The steering is controlled by the steering motor. The steering will be turned according to the steering control signals. The steering angle is controlled by the potentiometer. The digitized value of steering angle decision is shown below. Large Left 120 Small Left 145 Straight 170 Small Right 195 Large Right 220 Figure 2.4. [4] shows the graphical representation of the steering angle decision. Figure 2.4. Graphical representation of the steering angle decision [4] Similarly, the speed is controlled by the back motor and three commands are used for this Slow, Medium and Fast. The values for this is shown below and is decided by the back motors duty cycle values for pulse width modulated signal. Slow 20 Medium 50 Fast 80 Figure 2.5. [4] shows the graphical representation of speed control decision Figure 2.5. Graphical representation of speed control decision[4] Destination Arrived A GPS receiver is attached to the controller to know whether the autonomous car has arrived its destination. The destination will be already decided and entered by the user to the micro controller by using a mobile app. The car and the user can communicate to each other using the 4G network. A SIM card will be already embedded inside the car. Once the car has arrived the destination the car will notify the user. 2.2.1.b COMPUTER VISION UNIT Computer vision unit does the decision-making process in the system. In this paper, overtaking and backward process are discussed. Computer vision unit extracts information from the images taken from multiple cameras and makes decision when to overtake other vehicles and when to reverse the car. Backward direction The figure 2.6. [5] shows the algorithm for backward process of the vehicle. Figure 2.6. Algorithm for backward process [5] Step 1: Decide whether the car should take backward direction or not. Step 2: If yes, the car should select the speed of the vehicle to move in backward direction. If not, then the car continues to move in forward direction. Step 3: After selecting the speed of the backward movement, the next step is to select the direction of the backward movement. If the car wants to move left, then steering should be turned to right and if the car wants to move right then the steering should be turned left. If the wants to move backward in a straight direction then the steering should be kept straight i.e., no change for the steering. Step 4: After the step 3 the car will check the backward process has been completed and the process comes to an end. Overtaking Overtaking is a difficult process normally done by human drivers. To overtake another car the vehicle should maintain a certain speed limit and distance between the two cars should be in a safe distance so that it will not collide. The algorithm for a safe overtaking is given in the figure 2.7. [5]. Figure 2.7. Algorithm for overtaking [5] Step 1: The autonomous car will decide whether to overtake the other car in front of it which will be moving slower than it. If yes, then it should select the overtaking speed. If not, then the car should continue the previous speed. Step 2: The autonomous car should change to the left lane after deciding the speed to overtake. It should check through the rear camera that no other vehicles are trying to overtake it in the left lane, otherwise the two cars will collide with each other. Step 3: After changing to the left lane the autonomous car should continue to move in straight direction. It should check whether it has overtaken the slow vehicle. If yes, then it should change to the right lane maintaining a safe distance. If not, it should continue to move in straight direction and keep on monitoring whether it has overtaken the slow vehicle. Step 4: After the change of lane the autonomous car should check whether it has completed the lane changing. If yes, then the process comes to an end. 2.2.2 CHALLENGES AND DESIGN ISSUES IN THE PROPOSED SYSTEM Challenges (i) In the proposed system, only the algorithm for overtaking and backward movement has discussed. Artificial intelligence algorithm has not been discussed. (ii) In the proposed system, there is detection of traffic signals which can be incorporated in the future development Design Issues (i) Sometimes GPS might fail to work in that case the autonomous car might fail to find its direction. (ii) Ultrasonic sensors can produce some errors when sensing objects which might result in collision. 2.2.3 AUTONOMOUS CARS ALREADY IN MARKET Fully autonomous car will be on our road by 2021. Many car companies like tesla, google, BMW has already started developing such cars. Googles self-driving car has completed 1,500,000 miles in full automated mode on mar 2016 [10]. This car has no steering and brake pedal. It has laser and radar sensors to sense the obstacles and also have a back-up steering, braking, and computing system if any of these fails. 3. CONCLUSION To conclude, we will be able to see self-driving cars on our roads soon, addressing all the road problems like congestions, parking problem, accidents and so on. In this paper two use cases have been discussed. In the first use case, a server system, mobile system and vehicle control system are used for autonomous vehicle valet parking. The proposed system will drop the diver/user at his/her destination and will park the vehicle in the parking slot selected by the user. The future development of the system can be made by making the car to go and pick the user from the parking slot, when he/she is ready to leave. The second use case describes an autonomous vehicle that can drive without human intervention in an unknown environment using fuzzy logic. The use cases included were obstacle avoidance, backward moving and overtaking. The block diagram and algorithm of the proposed system are described in the paper. REFFERENCES [1] C. F. Lin, J. C. Juang and K. R. Li, Active collision avoidance system for steering control of autonomous vehicles, in IET Intelligent Transport Systems, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 550-557, Sept. 2014. [2] Mohammad Abdul Qayum, Nafiul Alam Siddique, Mohammad Abtiqul Haque and A. S. M. 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