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AVs in Rural America: What will it take to make this work?

Date and Time: Wednesday, July 12, 2023: 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Cher Carney 

Senior Research Associate, University of Iowa, Driving Safety Research Institute

Presentation Description

The “ADS for Rural America” is a US Demonstration Grant project that utilizes a high-speed automated transit vehicle on a 47-mile route through rural roadways in Iowa. The goal of this project was to identify the challenges that rural roadways present for automated vehicles, collect data on the performance of an automated vehicle when exposed to those challenges, publicly share the data for analysis, and document our findings. Over the past 2 years, we have operated the ADS vehicle across varying weather, driving and traffic conditions. We have finished collecting data on the performance of the automation and the trust/perception of passengers in the vehicle. We are now in the process of documenting our findings and making the data publicly available.

This session will provide details on the challenges we encountered related to getting the vehicle to operate under automation on rural roadways. Working with our technology partners, AutonomouStuff and Mandli Communications, we describe the methods and techniques we used to improve automation. This will be illustrated by 3 specific examples of what makes automation challenging on rural roadways:

This discussion will provide greater insight into the capabilities and limitations of ADS vehicles that are, and will be, utilized in demonstrations and deployment across the world.

Agenda:

- Introductions and Session Overview
- ADS for Rural America demonstration project description
- Description of the ADS vehicle and the 47-mile rural roadway route
- Description of how automated vehicles see the world, and make decisions on what to do
- 3 examples of automation challenges on rural roadways and our solutions
o Getting an ADS vehicle to travel at speed (up to 65mph) on rural roads under automation
o Navigating roadways with no lane markings and little or no signage under automation
o Navigating gravel roadways under automation
- Lessons learned
- Open discussion with audience and Q&A

Speaker Biography

Cher Carney is a senior research associate at the University of Iowa's Driving Safety Research Institute. Her areas of research are driver performance assessment, distraction, crash avoidance telematics and standards development. She has been active in conducting naturalistic driving research examining human factors and safety related issues. Most recently that has involved ADAS and it’s effect on driver vigilance and attention with regard to driver takeovers from automation. She is currently the Research Lead for the Automated Driving Systems for Rural America project.

Presentation File