Kim Alexander

Analysis of in-vehicle driver behaviour data for improved safety

Automotive safety is an important criterion for consumers, manufacturers and government regulators when considering vehicle design and driver operation. The availability of a driver classification system, based on in-vehicle operating data, offers a useful tool to create a safer transportation environment. In this paper, several mathematical strategies will be presented to analyse collected vehicle data for driver classification. A group of test subjects were supplied in-vehicle data acquisition devices and requested to drive their normal schedules. The collected data was analysed off-line and a driver classification system was proposed. Representative results will be presented and discussed to demonstrate the concept.

A Comparison of Multiple Control Strategies for Vehicle Run-Off-Road and Return

A large percentage of single-vehicle automobile crashes involve a situation called run-off-road (ROR) where the vehicle leaves the roadway and travels on the surfaces adjacent to the road. Present solutions such as roadway infrastructure modifications and vehicle safety systems have helped to mitigate some ROR events but remain limited in their approach. A complete solution must also directly address the primary factor contributing to ROR crashes, which is driver performance errors. In this paper, four vehicle safety control systems, based on sliding (SL) control, linear quadratic (LQ), state flow, and classical theories, were developed to autonomously recover a vehicle from ROR without driver intervention. The vehicle response was simulated for each controller under a variety of common road departure and return scenarios. The results showed that the LQ and SL control methodologies outperformed the other controllers in terms of overall stability. However, the LQ controller was the only design to safely recover the vehicle in all of the simulation conditions examined. On average, it performed the recovery almost 50% faster and with 40% less lateral error than the SL controller at the expense of higher yaw rates.

An Integrated Child Safety Seat Cooling System—Model and Test

Vehicle safety remains a prominent automotive issue for engineers, consumers, and government regulators. One area that merits attention is the safety issue of when a child is left alone in a parked vehicle during the summer months when the ambient air temperatures are warmer. Injuries and deaths of infants, young children, and elderly adults have occurred due to elevated body temperatures for prolonged time periods. One proposed solution is the design of a car safety seat that offers temporary thermal protection to the occupant. This seat features thermoelectric cooling and forced air convection to maintain the body temperature within acceptable ranges for a limited time. In this paper, a system thermal model and experimental results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the thermoelectric-based safety system. The experimental system demonstrates the capability of maintaining localized cabin air temperatures below critical survivability thresholds in a closed parked vehicle for up to 95 minutes. This represents an 85% increase over standard child seating units, in cabin temperatures up to 69°C, for an emulated 7 kg infant.

A Customizable Human/Vehicle Interface for Enhanced Operator Performance

The emergence of cost effective electronics and actuators within the transportation industry allows the presentation of increased driver feedback for greater situational awareness. The operator feedback channels can be broadly divided into visual, audio, and haptic. To date, the automotive community has primarily relied on instrument panel lamps and buzzer/chime sounds to notify the driver of important information while the vehicle’s interaction with the road is mechanically communicated through the steering wheel “feel” and the driver seat motion. However, an opportunity exists to integrate the visual, audio, and haptic feedback channels in a more effective manner to increase driver safety. For instance, the driver may receive haptic driving information through high frequency and low amplitude steering wheel vibrations. Visual feedback may be presented in the form of LED lights on the dashboard and instrument cluster. Similarly, audio messages that are recognized through a different cognitive process than visual and haptic signals may be integrated into the cockpit. In this paper, a comprehensive approach is proposed for driver communication through visual, audio, and haptic feedback. Laboratory tests have been conducted with human subjects using a custom driving simulator to evaluate driver notification strategies. The effectiveness of each feedback channel is evaluated and the results demonstrate that the coordinated presentation of vehicle operational data through targeted feedback channels increase the operator’s overall safety.Copyright

Validation of a fixed-base automotive simulator for run-off-road safety and recovery training

Traffic fatalities and injuries continue to demand the attention of researchers and governments across the world as they remain significant factors in public health and safety. Enhanced legislature, together with vehicle and roadway technology, has helped to reduce the impact of traffic crashes in many scenarios. However, one specifically troublesome area of traffic safety which persists is the run-off-road crash where a vehicle’s wheels leave the paved portion of the roadway and begin to travel on the shoulder or side of the road. Large percentages of fatal and injury traffic crashes are attributed to run-off-road events. One of the most critical reasons why run-off-road scenarios quickly evolve into serious crashes is poor driver performance. Drivers are unprepared to handle the situation safely and often execute dangerous maneuvers, such as overcorrection, which can lead to devastating results. One countermeasure which directly addresses the driver performance is driver education and training. In this article, a simulator-based driving environment is proposed specifically for run-off-road recovery training. A human subject study is used to validate the simulator as an effective tool for replicating the run-off-road experience with the additional benefit of receiving insight into driver reactions to run-off-road events. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results of subjective questionnaire data and objective performance evaluation parameters show strong correlations to run-off-road crash data and previous run-off-road study conclusions. In particular, higher vehicle velocities, curved roads, and larger differences between the friction coefficient of the road and the friction coefficient of the shoulder all negatively impacted drivers’ recoveries from run-off-road scenarios. The only non-significant impact found was that of the roadway edge, indicating a possible limitation of the simulator system with respect to that particular environment variable. The validation study provides a foundation for further evaluation and development of a simulator-based run-off-road recovery training program to help to equip drivers with the skills to recognize and recover safely from this dangerous and often deadly scenario.

A Mobile Tailgating Detection System for Law Enforcement Surveillance

A number of automotive crashes occur each year due to semitrailers following passenger vehicles too closely on interstate highways and secondary roads. This hazardous practice, called tailgating, accounted for over 40% of the 110,000 trailer-passenger vehicle crashes recorded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2010. Tailgating is difficult to detect and document using visual methods and law enforcement agencies must depend on trained officers, whose abilities may be limited. In this paper, a proposed tailgating detection system, mounted to the officer’s patrol vehicle, continuously monitors both passenger and commercial vehicles, as the officer travels down the roadway. A rotating laser range-finding sensor feeds information to a microprocessor that continuously searches for the occurrence of tailgating. A weighting algorithm determines when a tailgating event has definitively occurred to reduce system sensitivity. If an event is detected, the officer is notified with audio and visual cues. A time stamped record including all relevant system information for later use in legal prosecution is also produced. In a virtual case study, the computer generated roadway environment was populated with vehicles of varying velocity and location. The numerical results show that the detection algorithm was able to successfully locate all of the virtual vehicles and accurately determine tailgating events under a number of different simulation conditions.Copyright

AUTOMOBILE SAFETY - CHILD SEAT ENTRAPMENT AND MECHATRONIC WARNING SYSTEM

Abstract The entrapment of humans and animals in stationary automobiles can lead to heat stroke and death, especially for young children and infants. The introduction of an occupant warning system would significantly reduce the occurrence of fatal entrapment. In this paper, a smart monitoring system will be integrated into a child safety seat and interfaced with its accompanying vehicle. The primary function of this device is to offer a warning if the child restraint contains an occupant, interior temperature is elevated, and the elapsed time within the automobile approaches a dangerous threshold. Specifically, an occupant detector circuit built into the child restraint certifies the presence of a passenger while a sensor monitors cabin temperature. Using an automobiles interior temperature profile, the system is capable of accurately determining the level of danger presented to entrapped passengers. This ensures that the smart child restraint system can decisively activate warning and rescue devices such as hazard lights, horn, power windows, seat fan, and tele-communication equipment. To assist in system calibration efforts, summer weather testing has been completed to explore cabin heating transients.

Automotive Participant Tailgating Safety Training Device: Design and Test

The safe operation of a ground vehicle requires a combination of driver skills and behaviour, motor–vehicle knowledge, and recognition of driving conditions and environments. One dangerous scenario commonly encountered by drivers is tailgating. In this paper, a lightweight tailgating device that can be installed on a sport utility vehicle (or truck) to support driver training activities will be presented. The tailgating apparatus has been field tested on a closed course as part of a safe driving programme. Objective vehicle measurements and subjective instructor evaluations revealed that 75% of students successfully completed the driving task at a passing level.

Run-off-road and recovery – state estimation and vehicle control strategies

ABSTRACT Despite many advances in vehicle safety technology, traffic fatalities remain a devastating burden on society. With over two-thirds of all fatal single-vehicle crashes occurring off the roadway, run-off-road (ROR) crashes have become the focus of much roadway safety research. Current countermeasures, including roadway infrastructure modifications and some on-board vehicle safety systems, remain limited in their approach as they do not directly address the critical factor of driver behaviour. It has been shown that ROR crashes are often the result of poor driver performance leading up to the crash. In this study, the performance of two control algorithms, sliding control and linear quadratic control, was investigated for use in an autonomous ROR vehicle recovery system. The two controllers were simulated amongst a variety of ROR conditions where typical driver performance was inadequate to safely operate the vehicle. The sliding controller recovered the fastest within the nominal conditions but exhibited large variability in performance amongst the more extreme ROR scenarios. Despite some small sacrifices in lateral error and yaw rate, the linear quadratic controller demonstrated a higher level of consistency and stability amongst the various conditions examined. Overall, the linear quadratic controller recovered the vehicle 25% faster than the sliding controller while using 70% less steering, which combined with its robust performance, indicates its high potential as an autonomous ROR countermeasure.