Introduction to the special issue on "New trends towards automatic vehicle control and perception systems"

Abstract

Intelligent and automatic systems are making our daily life easier. They are able to automate tasks that, up to now, were performed by humans, freeing them from these tedious tasks. They are mainly based on the classical robotic architectures where the stages of perception-using different sensor sources or even a fusion of a set of them-and planning-where intelligent control systems are applied-play a key role. Among all of the fields in which intelligent systems can be applied, transport systems are considered one of the most promising ones since over one million fatalities-including drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists-are registered each year worldwide and they can definitively help to reduce these figures. © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.