Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering have received a $100,000 multi-disciplinary grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to determine if it is safe for humans to share the road with autonomous buses.
The 21-month Transit IDEA project is a part of the Transit Cooperative Research Program, designed to foster innovative concepts.
Sungmoon Jung, Ph.D., professor of civil and environmental engineering, is the principal investigator for the study which uses computer-based simulations to investigate crash risks. Jung is working with Mohammed Reza Seyedi, Ph.D., a post-doctoral researcher, to help the industry make the autonomous bus safer.
“The benefit of multi-disciplinary research is that we can solve an important problem that one discipline cannot solve alone,” Jung said. “For this project, experts in autonomous bus operation and researchers in computational mechanics are collaborating to make the autonomous bus safer to the road users.”
An automated shuttle bus runs without an operator in the range of 10 to 25 mph, typically operating on campuses and in downtown districts where there are more pedestrians and bicyclists.
“Since these buses will operate in a dynamic environment, high-risk situations—caused by miscommunication between the bus and other road users or unpredictable pedestrian behaviors—must be identified and addressed prior to the implementation phase,” Seyedi said.
Using simulations, the team will gauge the safety of these interactions using National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) guidelines in different scenarios, including unavoidable crash situations. Jung and his team will measure the details of probable injury using high-fidelity human models.
“A crash is the last thing that we want with regard to autonomous vehicles,” Seyedi said. “However, when crashes are unavoidable, we want to understand the consequences and quantify injury risk using computer-based simulations.”