Intelligent Vehicles

The mission of the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) is to accelerate the development and availability of advanced safety and information systems applied to all types of vehicles. Driver error is cited as the primary cause in about 90 percent of all police-reported crashes involving passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses; therefore, IVI's primary goal is to help drivers operate vehicles more safely and effectively with technologies integrated to create a fully intelligent vehicle that works cooperatively with the driver. IVI advocates the creation of smart vehicles that fully consider the driver's requirements, capabilities, and limitations. IVI is a multi-agency research and development effort. These projects have collectively investigated the human factors, user acceptance and technical development of individual driver information systems, advanced collision-avoidance and vehicle safety systems, and automated highway systems. By coordinating activities among DOT's agencies, IVI captures synergies in research and economizes its resources.

Commercial Vehicle Secure Network for Safety and Mobility Applications

We propose to develop an integrated high-performance, robust and secure vehicular network for supporting heavy vehicles safety and mobility applications. The integrated network system supports vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and in-vehicle communications based on DSRC (dedicated short-range communications) radio, so that safety and mobility data of heavy vehicles can be transmitted and shared among vehicles and with road-side base stations. more...

Data Security for Trusted Truck®

Following the successful proof-of-concept demonstration of the Trusted Truck® - a project designed to show that a tractor trailer can communicate critical information both internally (on-board) and externally with roadside sites - an essential subsequent step, addressed by this project, is the development of a robust data security infrastructure to protect these on-board and external communications. For the system to be secure, the applications must be able to trust that the communication has been received unaltered and from a known source. Thus, a fundamental requisite for achieving security is the ability to provide for data confidentiality and authentication. more...

Traffic Signal Safety

This project will develop new traffic signal control logic to improve the safety of heavy vehicles on high speed approaches to signalized intersections using wireless communication between a heavy vehicle and a roadside traffic signal controller. The project will build on the Trusted TruckTM onboard computer system using the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) concept for deployment of communication technology between vehicles and roadside infrastructure. This technology for heavy vehicles can also be migrated to emergency responders more...

Trusted Truck®

The US DOT conducts close to 750,000 roadside inspections of commercial vehicles per year. Even with this seemingly large number of inspections the DOT is still being overwhelmed with the burden of performing inspections in a fashion that insures the carriers are complying with safety regulations without impacting the profitability of the carriers. The initial Trusted Truck® project helped demonstrate the ability to perform brake inspections wirelessly between the vehicle and the US DOT roadside infrastructure. This project builds on the prior work in this area to further explore the concept of wireless inspections and compliance of commercial vehicles along with ways that would help enhance the efficiency of the motor carriers. The goal will be to move closer to defining a mechanism for performing wireless vehicle inspections with sensors on critical vehicle safety systems and transmitting that data to an inspection station to support the US DOT goal of developing a capability of wireless truck inspections to enhance highway safety. more...

Trusted Truck® Inspection Station Demonstration of Remote Sensing of Brake Condition

This research project demonstrated the potential to improve safety, efficiency, and security for both government and the transportation industry. This research was performed to demonstrate an advanced real-time system using wireless local transmission of brake diagnostics information from a moving truck traveling through a roadside inspection station. The system will use wireless communication to locally broadcast brake, engine, and other vehicle diagnostic information to an inspection station. more...

Wireless Roadside Inspection (Joint Project with co-funding from FMCSA)

The number of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) and the miles they travel grow each year while roadside safety inspection resources remain constant. In addition, the likelihood of a roadside safety inspection being conducted on a CMV is far less than being weighed. In 2003, there were 3 million truck inspections with a violation rate of 73 percent, and 177 million roadside trucks weigh with a violation rate of 0.29 percent. New technologies and enforcement strategies could dramatically increase the number of times a commercial vehicle and driver are examined, leading to better-targeted enforcement, creating a greater deterrence to operate unsafely, and reducing the number of truck and bus crashes. The main objective of this project is to improve highway safety through the dramatic increase of roadside safety inspections of heavy trucks and buses and their drivers enabled by wireless communications between vehicles and inspectors at highway speeds. more...