Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 59 No. 4 (December 2022)
1Building Safe and Secure Mobility Infrastructure toSupport CASE Society

NAOKI KUSABA*1

KAZUO AKITA*2YOSHINAO TAKAKUWA*3 HIROYASU SHIMIZU*1

HIROSHI ARAKAWA*4

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) Group will link its Intelligent Transport Systems(ITS), mechanical parking systems, and environmental testing systems, which have been worked on
separately in the past, and utilize modeling and simulation (M&S) technology developed in theplant system and other fields. The aim is to realize the establishment of safe and secure
infrastructure by enabling the use of AI technology with a small amount of data for the roadtransport sector, which is facing a major transformation due to the advancement of CASE*1. This
report introduces each of these efforts.
*1 Stands for Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric, which are technology trends in theautomotive industry to build safe and convenient next-generation mobility services.

|1. Introduction
The automotive field is facing a period of major transformation due to the advancement ofCASE, but the values of improving safety, efficiency and reducing environmental impact remainunchanged. These values are also consistent with the vision of MHI Group. MHI Group has long
been involved in products such as testing systems, ITS, and mechanical parking systems that
support the automotive sector. By developing these technologies and developing the infrastructure
to support CASE, MHI Group aims to realize a safe and secure society and promotedecarbonization, energy saving and manpower saving.
The infrastructure for supporting the advancement of CASE that MHI Group is working on
consists of three major items. Figure 1 shows the overall picture of the efforts.
The first is indoor integrated environmental testing facility capable of high-precision testing
to support the development of increasingly complex automated vehicles. The second is a safety
monitoring service that improves safety by providing out-of-sight forward road information tosupport the operation of automated vehicles. The third is a “Smart Stockyard” equipped with
automatic valet parking, electric vehicle charging and discharging, and enhanced automatic
refueling and maintenance functions, to be used as a base facility to support the development ofCASE and MaaS*2 society.
The following chapters introduce the details of each of the efforts.
*2 MaaS: Stands for Mobility as a Service. A new concept of mobility that seamlessly links all modes ofmobility (transportation) other than personal cars as a single service by utilizing ICT to form
transportation into a cloud.

*1

Chief Staff Manager, Business Development Department, Growth Strategy Office, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.

*2Manager, Business Development Department, Growth Strategy Office, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.

*3

Principal Manager, Growth Strategy Office, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.

*4Chief Engineer, Growth Strategy Office, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 59 No. 4 (December 2022)
2Figure 1 Building infrastructure to support the advancement of CASE, which MHIGroup is working on|2. Integrated environmental testing facility
2.1

What is the integrated environmental testing facility?

Automated vehicles are under vigorous development worldwide. It is expected that theircapabilities will improve dramatically and that they will become more widely used in the future.
On the other hand, to guarantee their safety and security, it is necessary to verify that sensors andsystems function properly in the diverse natural environments that automated vehicles face, and it
is anticipated that the need for all-environmental testing facility will increase in the future. MHIGroup is developing an indoor integrated environmental testing facility that can generate any
combination of natural environments (snow, fog, rain, light, etc.) and driving conditions to test
automated vehicles with high precision, and a system that enables comprehensive verification
under virtual environments, in collaboration with Applus+ IDIADA, a multinational company
based in Spain that performs engineering, testing, and homologation for the automotive industry.
Figure 2 shows the concept of the automated vehicle testing and verification system and integrated
environmental testing facility. This aims to help automotive manufacturers and sensor
manufacturers shorten the development period of automated vehicles and reduce development costs
by stably creating natural environments and driving conditions, such as fog and rain, which cannot
be reproduced in public road tests. Furthermore, we intend to contribute to the standardization ofsafety performance verification methods by feeding back the know-how and practices obtained
from the integrated environmental testing facility to the international standards and homologation
for automated driving.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 59 No. 4 (December 2022)
3Figure 2 Concept of testing and verification system of advanced automated vehicles
and integrated environment testing facility

2.2

Technology for supporting integrated environmental testing facility

The integrated environmental testing facility that reproduces any natural environment
indoors requires cross-cutting technologies: the first is radar wave reflection and scattering control
technology to suppress and control the effects of the indoor environment that makes testing of radar
sensors installed in automated vehicles difficult due to increased reflection and scattering; thesecond is environmental testing technology to control the temperature and humidity throughout thetest facility to reproduce snow, fog, etc.; and the third is system integration technology to
combine these technologies into an automotive testing facility.
For the development, the technologies of three companies in the MHI Group will be brought
together, comprising the radar wave reflection and scattering control technology of Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries, Ltd., the environmental testing technology for air-conditioning and refrigerationequipment of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration, Ltd., and the system
integration technology for automotive testing facility of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machinery
Systems, Ltd., to promote the construction of the testing environment required for automatedvehicles.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 59 No. 4 (December 2022)4|3. Safety monitoring service
3.1

What is the safety monitoring service?

Recently, tests for the practical application of automated vehicles have been conducted invarious road environments. Given that, one of possible scenarios would be that safety to be ensured
not only by relying on the sensors and functions of the vehicle itself, but also by cooperating with
the infrastructure have emerged. For example, on highways, the visibility for vehicle's on-board
sensors may not be sufficient to smoothly change lanes, decelerate, or take other safety measures in
response to lane restrictions due to accidents, constructions, falling objects, sudden weatherchanges, traffic congestions and etc. It is considered essential to provide out-of-sight forward roadinformation from the roadside infrastructure for smooth and safe driving in such cases. MHI Groupaims to contribute to the establishment of safe and convenient next-generation mobility society bydelivering those out-of-sight forward road information to automated vehicles using
vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. Figure 3 shows the concept of the safety monitoring
service.

Figure 33.2

Concept of safety monitoring service

Technology for supporting safety monitoring service

MHI Group has a proven record of solutions for road charging and road control, including
toll collection on expressways and congestion charging (road pricing) in urban areas. Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries Machinery Systems, Ltd. has provided these technologies for about 60 years, andhas accumulated technical expertise in wireless communications and image sensing in the roadenvironment. In addition, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, Ltd. has established a railroad
system in which ground systems cooperate with on-railroad vehicle to ensure safety and has theexpertise to analyze and evaluate the safety of the system. MHI Group aims to establish a safety
monitoring service by utilizing these technologies and expertise.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machinery Systems, Ltd., jointly with Spectee Inc., applied to apublic call for a demonstration test of safety monitoring service by Central Nippon Expressway
Company Limited (NEXCO Central Japan) in February 2022, and the application was adopted.
This verification test is scheduled to be conducted on an about four-kilometer section locatedbetween Shin-Hadano Interchange to Shin-Gotemba Interchange, an unused part of Shin-Tomei
Expressway, in Shizuoka Prefecture, and preparations are underway to conduct the test in fiscal
2023. The test will consist of three parts: (1) "Provision of road obstacle information to following
vehicles", (2) "Provision of optimal speed information, etc., according to road surface conditions
and driving environment", and (3) "Support of by-destination following travel". (1) and (2) areexpected to contribute for a reliable automated driving, by delivering out-of-sight forward roadinformation that cannot be detected by the onboard sensors of the vehicle using
vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. (3) provides information to autonomous vehicles toMitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 59 No. 4 (December 2022)
5

activate or cancel traveling in platoon and following each other. The platooning of autonomousvehicles is expected to realize energy-saving driving by reducing air resistance, etc.

|4. Smart stockyard
4.1

What is the smart stockyard?

Parking spaces are an important transportation infrastructure indispensable to society,providing convenience to users of commercial facilities and office buildings. MHI Group has been
providing a variety of "eco-friendly mechanical parking systems" that reduce the time required forentry and exit, reduce noise, further improve safety, and enhance ease of use. MHI Group isseeking to evolve the parking systems into "smart stockyards" with enhanced automatic valet
parking, electric vehicle charging and discharging, and automatic refueling and maintenancefunctions, as base facilities supporting the coming MaaS society through the advancement ofCASE.
An automated valet parking system uses automated driving technology to provide unattended
parking at commercial facilities, large complexes, shopping malls, airports, etc. MHI Group isworking with Stanley Robotics (SR), a French venture company, to develop an automated valet
parking system using an automatic guided vehicle (AGV), car carrying robot named "Stan". Figure
4 shows the concept of the automated valet parking system. The introduction of this AGV robot
will free users from the hassle of searching a vacant parking space in a large parking lot andwalking to a distant parking lot while carrying large items after shopping as an example.
Furthermore, this parking system enables users to load their luggage into their cars in a large space,making the entire series of activities from arrival to departure stress-free. In addition, this parking
system can increase the number of vehicles that can be accommodated in the same lot area by up to50% compared to conventional parking lots by changing the arrangement, enabling parking lot
owners to make more efficient use of the limited area. The AGV robots are battery-powered,contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions generated in parking lots.

Figure 4

Concept of automated valet parking system

Automated vehicle transport and storage services can be applied to transport finishedvehicles from automotive plants as well. Figure 5 shows the concept of finished vehicletransportation. This would enable 24 hours and 365 days operation in automotive plants, ports,
motor pools, etc., solving the problem of a shortage of skilled drivers, and realize low-cost and safe
transportation at the same time.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 59 No. 4 (December 2022)
6Figure 5

Concept of finished vehicle transportation

For the electrification of parking lots in response to the increase of electric vehicles, MHI
Group is proposing electrification solutions not only limited to installation of charging anddischarging facility but also, control of the charging sequence, keeping the required electric power
within the power receiving capacity of the facility, and charge/discharge management to optimize
power costs.
In the future, MHI Group aims to apply energy management technology developed overmany years in power generation plants and combine the batteries of electric vehicles accumulated
in parking facilities, photovoltaic cell and stationary storage batteries to supply electric power
adjusted for each facility. MHI Group is seeking to operate these facilities as an integrated demand
response or virtual power plant to contribute to the stabilization of the regional power grid.

4.2

Technology for supporting smart stockyard

In the field of automated valet parking systems, MHI Group is collaborating with Stanley
Robotics (SR), a French venture company that has pioneered the world's first automated valet
parking system using AGV robots. By combining the AGV robots provided by SR with themechanical parking systems, traffic flow control technologies and unmanned system monitoringand management technologies developed, MHI Group has capability to provide services that meet awide variety of customer needs. MHI Group hopes to create unprecedented new value in advanceof the full-scale spread of automated driving (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Stanley Robotics AGV car carrying robot "Stan"Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 59 No. 4 (December 2022)
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MHI Group has conducted a demonstration test of the automated valet parking system using
AGV robots for the first time at a commercial facility in Japan in June 2022. The aim is todevelop a business of automated valet parking system in Japan. With the cooperation of theMitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd. Group, MHI Group conducted a demonstration test of automatedvehicle transport with AGV robots in a form similar to a real environment at the parking lot of theoutlet mall "Shisui Premium Outlets" (Inbagun, Chiba Prefecture, Japan) developed and operatedby Mitsubishi Estate-Simon Co., Ltd., to verify the performance of the transport, and evaluated thelevel of user satisfaction. The system was well received by users with comments such as "it wasconvenient because all I had to do was just to leave my car in the berth", "Great experience that I
didn't have to park in a tight space", etc. Going forward, MHI Group will continue to make
improvements to the mechanism and operation based on customer feedback from thisdemonstration test and provide automated valet parking services using AGV robots to commercialfacilities, large complexes, theme parks, airports and other parking facilities, thereby contributing
to the realization of a safe, comfortable and sustainable society.

|5. Conclusion
This report introduced MHI Group's efforts to build infrastructure to support theadvancement of CASE, including integrated environmental testing facility, safety monitoringservices, and “Smart Stockyards”. MHI Group will continue to contribute to the realization of asafer and more secure society by bringing together its technologies to promote decarbonization,energy conservation and labor savings.