Safety
Safety is and always will be the top priority of CAV technologies. Despite significant advancements in technology over the past two decades, it is widely acknowledged that autonomous vehicles (AVs) still have a safety performance that falls considerably short of that exhibited by the average human driver. CCAT focuses its safety-based research from three distinct perspectives. First, the development and demonstration of safety validation methodologies for AVs, encompassing both functional safety testing and behavioral safety testing. Secondly, the expeditious deployment of V2X (vehicle-to-everything) technology, taking into account the FCC Ruling that designates 30MHz of safety spectrum for transportation applications. This is particularly crucial in the realm of safeguarding vulnerable road users (VRUs). Lastly, the development and demonstration of CAV deployment in the Midwest, which entails navigating winter driving conditions in urban areas and year-round driving in rural regions.
Research Focusing on Safety
| A Low-cost Roadside Device System for Cooperative Automated Driving Phase 2: Work Zone Safety Applications |
| Principal Investigator(s): Steven Parker & Bin Ran Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Addressing Safety and Security Challenges in ML-based AV Software Stack – Remote Operation Support and Balancing Trade-offs |
| Principal Investigator(s): Z. Morley Mao & Yiheng Feng Research Focus: Safety, Cybersecurity, Mobility |
| Autonomous Vehicle Challenges for the US Rural Midwest |
| Principal Investigator(s): Rajesh Rajamani Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Balancing Safety, Cyber-Security, and Mobility: Quantifying the Impact of Sensor Redundancy in Connected and Automated Vehicles |
| Principal Investigator(s): Neda Masoud Research Focus: Safety, Cybersecurity |
| CAV Pilot Development and Deployment in Midwest Winter |
| Principal Investigator(s): Ziran Wang Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Centralized Junction Control of Offset Intersections for CAV Platoons |
| Principal Investigator(s): Ping Yi Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Cost Benefit Analysis of an Infrastructure-Vehicle Cooperative Perception System |
| Principal Investigator(s): Yiheng Feng, Ziran Wang, & Andrew Tarko Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| COVERT: Cognitive Internet of Vulnerable Road Users in Traffic |
| Principal Investigator(s): Carol Menassa & Vineet Kamat Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Driving Simulation Insights for High-Speed AV Operations and Human-Machine Interactions |
| Principal Investigator(s): Samuel Labi & Kumares Sinha Research Focus: Safety |
| Economical Acquisition of Intersection Data to Facilitate CAV Operations Phase II – Implementation |
| Principal Investigator(s): James Krogmeier & Samuel Labi Research Focus: Safety |
| Evaluating V2X Network Performance and Enhancing Safety and Security in Sensor Data Sharing for Connected and Automated Driving |
| Principal Investigator(s): Zhi-Li Zhang, Z. Morley Mao, & Yiheng Feng Research Focus: Safety, Cybersecurity |
| Evaluation of Vehicle Telematics and Infrastructure-based Connected Vehicle Data for Real-Time Safety and Mobility Application |
| Principal Investigator(s): Xiaopeng Li, Pei Li, & Chengyuan Ma Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Examining Driver Hand-off and Take-over of AVs at J-turn Intersections |
| Principal Investigator(s): Nichole Morris & Katelyn Schwieters Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Generating High-Accuracy Transportation Datasets with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| Principal Investigator(s): Gabor Orosz Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Hardening the CAV Ecosystem to Reduce Cybersecurity Risks – Year One |
| Principal Investigator(s): Zhi-Li Zhang, Z. Morley Mao, & Yiheng Feng Research Focus: Safety, Cybersecurity |
| Hardening the Economical Acquisition of Intersection Data to Improve System Integrity |
| Principal Investigator(s): Samuel Labi Research Focus: Safety, Cybersecurity |
| Human-centered Testing of Rear-facing Display to Reduce Vehicle Collisions with Snowplows |
| Principal Investigator(s): Nichole Morris & Rajesh Rajamani Research Focus: Safety |
| Impact of Modularized Autonomous Vehicles on Transit System Design and Operations |
| Principal Investigator(s): Marco Nie Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Improving Traffic Safety through Quantification of Road Network Hydroplaning Risks |
| Principal Investigator(s): Imad Al-Qadi & Yanfeng Ouyang Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Lessons from High-speed Level-5 AV Racing |
| Principal Investigator(s): Samuel Labi Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Leveraging C-V2X and Advanced Communications/Sensing for Rural Road Safety |
| Principal Investigator(s): Zhi-Li Zhang & Raphael Stern Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Making CAV Deployments Compatible with Complete Streets Objectives for Safe and Efficient Operation — Phase I |
| Principal Investigator(s): Hani Mahmassani Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Making CAV Deployments Compatible with Complete Streets Objectives for Safe and Efficient Operation — Phase II |
| Principal Investigator(s): Hani Mahmassani Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Making CAV Deployments Compatible with Complete Streets Objectives for Safe and Efficient Operation — Phase III |
| Principal Investigator(s): Yu (Marco) Nie Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Methodologies for Monitoring Work Zone Performance Measures across State Border Highways Using Connected Vehicle Data |
| Principal Investigator(s): Darcy Bullock Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Naturalistic Vehicle-Bicycle Interactions in Urban Environments |
| Principal Investigator(s): David Noyce, Madhav Chitturi, & Boris Claros Research Focus: Safety |
| Optimizing Investments in Design, Maintenance, and Operations of Transportation Infrastructure to Capitalize on the Promise of Connected Automated Vehicles |
| Principal Investigator(s): Pablo Luis Durango-Cohen Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Optimizing Operation of Diverging Diamond Interchange with Automated Vehicles |
| Principal Investigator(s): Ping Yi Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Practice-Ready Guidelines for Training Older Adults to Use Connected and Automated Vehicles: Testing of an Enhanced Training Program at Mcity Test Facility and the Goodyear Test Track |
| Principal Investigator(s): David W. Eby & Ping Yi Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Precise Connected Automated Vehicle Motion Planning with V2I Passive System |
| Principal Investigator(s): Jeffery Roesler & Alireza Talebpour Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Prediction of Pavement Damage under Truck Platoons Utilizing a Combined Finite Element and Artificial Intelligence Models |
| Principal Investigator(s): Imad Al-Qadi Research Focus: Safety |
| Prototyping a Low-cost Roadside Device System for Cooperative Automated Driving |
| Principal Investigator(s): Steven Parker & Bin Ran Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Road User-Automated Vehicle Expectancies, Interactions, and Safety |
| Principal Investigator: David Noyce, Sikai Chen, Sue Ahn, & Madhav Chitturi Research Focus: Safety |
| Roadway Friction Screening and Measurement with Automated Vehicle Telematics and Control |
| Principal Investigator(s): Xiaopeng Li, Yanfeng Ouyang, & Heye Huang Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Roundabout Connected/Automated Vehicle Active Inference Control Strategies to Improve Safety for All Users |
| Principal Investigator(s): Vassilios Morellas & Ted Morris Research Focus: Safety, Mobility, Accessibility |
| Rural Intersection Enhancement and Driver Behavior Study |
| Principal Investigator(s): Nichole Morris Research Focus: Safety |
| Rural Intersection Safety for Autonomous and Connected Vehicles |
| Principal Investigator(s): Rajesh Rajamani & Brian Davis Research Focus: Safety |
| Safe and Personalized Control of Autonomous Vehicles with On-Board Vision Language Models: System Design and Real-World Validation |
| Principal Investigator(s): Ziran Wang Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Safe and Trustworthy Human-Centered Mobility: Leveraging Foundation Models and Digital Twins for Vulnerable Road User-Vehicle Interactions |
| Principal Investigator(s): Sikai Chen Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Smart Construction Work-Zone Safety with ADAS and Passive Road Sensing |
| Principal Investigator(s): Jeffery Roesler Research Focus: Safety |
| Towards Safe and Efficient Autonomous Driving: A Synergistic Approach with Human Expertise and Multimodal Large Language Models |
| Principal Investigator(s): Sikai Chen & Yiheng Feng Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Understanding Risks and Opportunities for Ramp Metering Control in a Mixed-Autonomy Future |
| Principal Investigator(s): Raphael Stern Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
| Using Connected Intelligent Transportation to Enhance Vulnerable Road User Safety |
| Principal Investigator(s): Sikai Chen, Sue Ahn, & David Noyce Research Focus: Safety, Accessibility |
| Using Connected Intelligent Transportation to Enhance Vulnerable Road User Safety: Phase II Real-world Testing and Deployment |
| Principal Investigator(s): Sikai Chen Research Focus: Safety, Accessibility |
| V2I Road Sensing for Connected Automated Vehicle Maneuvering in Rural Communities |
| Principal Investigator(s): Jeffery Roesler & Alireza Talebpour Research Focus: Safety, Mobility |
