Safety through Disruption (SAFE-D) University Transportation Center (UTC)

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Browsing Safety through Disruption (SAFE-D) University Transportation Center (UTC) by Subject "automated"

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    Automated Truck Mounted Attenuator: Phase 2 Performance Measurement and Testing
    Vilela, Jean Paul Talledo; Mollenhauer, Michael A.; White, Elizabeth E.; Vaughn, Elijah W. (Safe-D University Transportation Center, 2023-12)
    Truck-Mounted Attenuators (TMAs) are energy-absorbing devices added to heavy shadow vehicles to provide a mobile barrier that protects work crews from errant vehicles entering active work zones. In mobile and short duration operations, drivers manually operate the TMA, keeping pace with the work zone as needed to function as a mobile barrier protecting work crews. While the TMA is designed to absorb and/or redirect the energy from a colliding vehicle, there is still significant risk of injury to the TMA driver when struck. TMA crashes are a serious problem in Virginia, where they have increased each year from 2011 (17 crashes) to 2014 (45 crashes), despite a decrease in the number of active construction sites between 2013 and 2014. Although various efforts have been made to improve TMA vehicle crashworthiness (e.g., by adding interior padding, harnesses, and supplemental head restraints), the most effective way to protect TMA drivers may be to remove them from the vehicle altogether. Recent advances in automated vehicle technologies—including advanced sensing, high-precision differential GPS, inertial sensing, advanced control algorithms, and machine learning—have enabled the development of automated systems capable of controlling TMA vehicles. Furthermore, the relatively low operating speeds and platoon-like operating movements of leader-follower TMA systems make an automated control concept feasible for a variety of mobile and short-duration TMA use cases without the cost or complexity of full autonomy. This project seeks to develop an automated control system for TMA vehicles using a short following distance, leader-follower control concept which will remove the driver from the at-risk TMA.
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    Standardized Performance Evaluation of Vehicles with Automated Capabilities
    Basantis, Alexis; Harwood, Leslie C.; Doerzaph, Zachary R.; Neurauter, Luke (SAFE-D: Safety Through Disruption National University Transportation Center, 2019-12)
    Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) are becoming widely available in the new vehicle landscape, increasing of both vehicle occupants’ and other road users’ safety. In some vehicles, longitudinal and lateral positioning under certain conditions can be maintained, designating them as having either SAE level 1 (L1) or level 2 (L2) automated features. By developing a standardized set of tests to be applied to current L1 and L2 vehicles, while keeping the future advancement of automation in mind, these vehicles’ system performance, feature limitations, and performance consistency can be systematically evaluated. This project sought to develop an easily implementable, standardized set of testing procedures that could be quickly and inexpensively performed on automated vehicles to characterize their feature capabilities and limitations. Such information is useful to private or public organizations interested in a standardized approach to classifying vehicle capabilities, whether for informing the expectation of operators, or for cataloging and learning from the variety of implementation alternatives. Although not the primary purpose, this project may also help inform efforts to develop certification or other standardized vehicle performance efforts. The results of this project showed that specific roadway factors affected automated feature performance and that there was significant performance variability across test vehicles.