University of Surrey - Research Portal

Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) are widely used for last-mile delivery of goods to manufacturers and consumers due to their ease of manoeuvrability, better mileage, and lower operating costs. They account for over 80% of total commercial vehicle sales in the European Union. Therefore, automation of LCVs has a significant socio-economic impact. A fuzzy trajectory controller with a minimum number of rules is designed for a hypothetical Level 3 autonomous vehicle (L3AV) and tested in a narrow road scenario. The analysis of the simulations showed that the maximum tracking error in the angular position was 4.1° at 4 m/s, 6.3° at 6 m/s, and 6.7° at 8 m/s, while the maximum lateral error was 0.1 m in all scenarios. The results have shown that the proposed controller achieves acceptable performance at different speeds with a minimum number of rules, leading to real-time implementation.

Due to the advent of E-commerce businesses, delivery vehicle traffic has grown by 71% over the last two decades. Hence, the automation of vans has received special attention to improve road safety. This study compares the performance of a trajectory tracking controller powered by three rival AI-based techniques namely, Particle Swarm, Genetic Algorithm and Ant Colony. Through scenario-based testing, all three techniques are compared from the tracking performance, algorithm complexity, accuracy and precision, and simplicity in finding the optimal weighting factors of the lateral position error and heading angle error which define the desired lateral controller output. Taken individual performance, ant colony powered fuzzy tracking controller was superior in terms of computational time, accuracy, and precision whereas, poor in ease of programming and explainability.

Developing countries are recording high cryptocurrency adoption rates surpassing more advanced economies. Considering that this is the opposite of the realities of most other technologies in these areas, this high uptake is puzzling. With a case study of crypto use for cross-border payments in the Nigerian context, this paper addresses the paucity of empirical research on the phenomena of cryptocurrency adoption and diffusion in developing countries. We put forward a sociotechnical and empirically-grounded innovation translation account of the high rates of crypto transactions in developing countries that overcomes criticisms against extant arguments in the literature.

We take a case study approach and analyse the use of cryptocurrency for cross-border payments. Data collection involved two rounds of interviews with retailers from Nigeria, suppliers from China, informal exchangers, crypto brokers, and mediators. We analysed themes using an approach sensitised by actor-network theory (ANT) constructs. Our methodological approach focuses on ANT’s relational dynamics to examine how human and non-human actors enable cryptocurrency adoption in a developing-country context.

We show evidence to suggest that crypto adoption and diffusion in developing countries occurs through an iterative process of technology transformation and appropriation, a strong coalition of the interests of diverse actors, and a dynamic relationship between the technical elements of crypto and contextual political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental influences. Findings have implications for crypto-focused companies, development institutions, and policymakers who increasingly show interest in the popularity of cryptocurrencies in developing countries.

This research breaks ground as a sociotechnical and empirically-grounded description of the widespread use of cryptocurrencies in developing countries. The study provides an insightful approach to understanding technology adoption as a relational and context-sensitive process. Insights from the framework might be useful for addressing adoption challenges and designing inclusive financial systems in similar contexts.

Open Radio Access Networks (Open-RAN) trigger a shift from conventional monolithic RAN architectures to disaggregated designs with open interfaces, diversifying the 5G supply chain and boosting innovation. It is envisaged that Open-RAN deployments will be heavily software-based, allowing for higher flexibility and faster integration of new features. However, existing software-based solutions, seem to be unable to realize practical and standard-compliant Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) designs with a large number of concurrently transmitted information streams, as the 5G New Radio standard requires in order to substantially improve connectivity and throughput. In this context, we introduce MIMO-SoftiPHY, the first 3GPP and Open-RAN compliant, software-based physical layer (PHY) design and implementation framework that can practically realize MIMO designs with large numbers of information streams in a power-efficient manner. MIMO-SoftiPHY is inherently integrated with OpenAirInterface, enabling practical, software-based MIMO deployments with commercial-off-the-shelf user equipment. Specifically, MIMO-SoftiPHY achieves real-time performance for 12 MU-MIMO streams at a 10MHz bandwidth and 8 streams at a 20MHz. In addition, and in contrast to existing designs, MIMO-SoftiPHY can also support non-linear base-station processing in real-time that, as we show, can result in substantial power savings at the radio side, by obviating the need for a " massive " number of base-station antennas.

Recent armed conflicts present a paradox. Military officials routinely claim that conflicts, such as the recent war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, are the most precise in history. Yet thousands of civilians continue to be killed. This Article shows the reason so many civilians continue to be killed is that the law we have was never designed for modern warfare, in which states are heavily reliant on air power, and enemy combatants are not generally separate or readily distinguishable from civilians. This truth about the limits of the legal protections codified nearly fifty years ago in the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions was explicitly and repeatedly recognized at the Protocols’ negotiating conference. Yet states have effectively blinded themselves to these limits and continue to apply the law as if it were adequate to the conditions in which we fight. This article seeks to remedy the legal blindness by asking - and answering - how the law should be constructed if we want to protect civilians, and do so while serving our strategic interests in eliminating enemy threats and establishing durable security.

Despite what many saw as a d & eacute;tente in US-China relations as presidents Biden and Xi met at the G20 Summit in November 2022, both countries have continued to develop and deploy sanctions against one another. Among the most recent actions by the US is the continued use of export controls, particularly to limit China's access to advanced computing chips. Meanwhile, China has continued to use sanctions to target US firms, recently in the form of a national security investigation into US chip maker, Micron, and "countermeasures" against major US arms manufacturers such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. This Article examines the range of economic sanctions that the US and China have and could deploy against one another, the lawfulness of these measures, and the likely effects of these sanctions for the future of international sanctions law. Although unilaterally imposed economic sanctions remain a deeply contested area of international law, an unintended consequence of the increasing use of sanctions by the world's two largest economies will be to lend legitimacy and legality to their use. Although the economic costs of a US-China sanctions war would be staggering, such a war would only further entrench unilateral sanctions as a fundamental tool of national security and foreign relations. This Article describes how international law is likely to develop as a consequence of the proliferation of sanctions, arguing that, far from undermining their lawfulness, increased state practice will support a customary norm of unilaterally imposed sanctions.

The sanctions regimes employed by the United States are often painted with a broad brush as unlawful. Those who look a bit closer generally concede that US sanctions that apply on US territory and to US citizens are probably lawful. However, the conclusion usually follows that US sanctions with extraterritorial effect, and especially “secondary” sanctions that target, or at least encompass, foreign actors completely outside US jurisdiction, must surely be unlawful. Such arguments are generally based on appeals to principles of international law such as non-intervention, sovereignty, and jurisdiction. Few authors delve into actual US sanctions law and enforcement actions in any detail or depth. This chapter proposes to do precisely that by examining some of the main examples used to challenge the lawfulness of US sanctions, including BNP Paribas’ notorious $8.9 billion settlement with the US and direct challenges to the extraterritorial application of US secondary sanctions in the US case against Reza Zarrab. By closely examining US sanctions law and enforcement cases, the chapter argues that neither the principle of non-intervention nor the international law of jurisdiction is a persuasive basis for challenging the lawfulness of US secondary sanctions.

This chapter shows that attempts to liberalize restrictions on the use of force in counterterrorism operations should be rejected not only on legal grounds, but also as contrary to our national security interest. An increasing number of empirical studies show that more force, particularly in the form of airstrikes, increases terrorist violence and recruitment while increasing popular support for terrorist groups. A restrictive approach to the law governing the use of force against terrorist threats is thus the most effective way to address the reality of those threats. Contrary to the view that international humanitarian law (IHL) is the only source of restrictions on the use of force in counterterrorism operations, the chapter argues that international human rights law (IHRL) can impose additional restrictions on the use of force, particularly when force is used in civilian populated areas away from active combat. Following the jurisprudence of international courts on the application of IHL and IHRL to armed conflict, the chapter puts forward seven factors that should be analyzed to determine the relative application of IHL and IHRL to the use of force in counterterrorism operations. A determination of whether an armed conflict exists is just the first step in determining what kind of force may be used. It is also necessary to consider the circumstances in which force will be used and the reliability of the information on which a strike is predicated to determine the law properly governing the operation.