Global Active Safety Strategy Through Combined ATMS and AVCS Techniques
(Supported by DOT, 09/95-08/97)

The goal of this project is to investigate the potential for improved highway capacity and safety by combination ATMS traffic measurement data and servo control functions of AVCS systems. A link-layer control algorithm is designed to compute optimal traffic coordination scheme which improves traffic throughput without jeopardizing safety. A PC-based traffic simulation program has been used to successfully animate the vehicle motions on a 3-lane highway. Simulation results have shown that improved safety and capacity can be achieved under both recurrent and non-recurrent incidents.

Software for this project is available (for Windows 95/NT)
Download the Simulation program
Download input file for the simulation program
Download the Animation program

Safety Evaluation of Intelligent Cruise Control (ICC) Systems
(Supported by DOT, 09/96-08/99)

The main focus of this research is to study impact of ICC systems on safety. In the past, most ICC study focused on the performance of ICC systems on a single vehicle. The goal of this project is to examine the effect of ICC on traffic. A virtual highway has been constructed which simulates hundreds of vehicles on a 2-lane highway. The attributes of the vehicles can all be arbitrarily assigned, which include sensor types, vehicle characteristic, speed control algorithm (manual, regular cruise control, or ICC), human models, etc. A safety index is constructed based on vehicle headway, headway rate, and deceleration, which is used to demonstrate safety impact of ICC systems under different market penetration level.
Download a sample paper

Mobility Evaluation Metrics for Worst-Case Analysis
(Supported by TACOM through ARC, 09/94-02/98, by NSF 07/98-06/2002)

The main goal of this project is to design a systematic worst-case analysis method to study the performance of vehicles under extreme maneuvers. The roll-over of articulated vehicles is used as an example to illustrate the design process of this technique. It has been shown in a case study that under the same steering and braking limit, the proposed methodology successfully rolls over the truck, while traditional approach only generates a small roll angle (<5 degrees), and would have wrongfully predict a safe truck design. Sensitivity analysis based on the proposed worst-case evaluation method can be used to obtain improved vehicle and vehicle control system designs.

Software for this project is available (for Windows 95/NT)
Link to the ArcSim download page

Modeling and Control of Active Suspension Systems
(Supported by Ford motor company, 09/95-)

Active suspension systems have been studied for more than 2 decades. Two major factors that prevent wide implementation of this technique are cost, and robust performance under reasonable energy consumption. The main goals of this research is to construct accurate model of a hydraulic active suspension system, and to perform detailed power consumption/performance study of this system under nonlinear control techniques.