Award Data

The connected vehicles (CV) program is a DOT initiative that uses dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) to enable safer and greener surface transportation. Ongoing efforts exist to bring motor vehicles and infrastructure onto CV networks, but bicycles have been largely overlooked. Consequently, a significant need exists to bring cyclists onto these networks so other connected entities can be ...

Locomotives weigh up to 240 ton each. Rail cars can weigh from 30 ton (empty) to 140 ton (loaded). Track construction and maintenance equipment, earthmoving plant and haul trucks can all weigh 10’s of tons each. Rail road and yard workers can, literally, be surrounded by these very large, heavy and potentially dangerous pieces of equipment. When a 200-lb worker ‘argues’ with any of these equ ...

In addition to hazards relevant to automobiles, motorcycle riders must remain vigilant for hazards that pose significant danger uniquely to motorcycles, such as uneven terrain, sand/gravel, and potholes. However, there is currently no motorcycle-specific hazard tracking or alerting system available for riders. To address this need, Charles River Analytics executed a successful Phase I effort to de ...

Automatic Direct Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) can be used to provide seamless integration of space and vehicles and aircraft and for more efficient airspace use as the number of commercial space vehicles operations increase. This proposed Phase II will continue the development of techniques and equipment needed to allow for commercial space vehicles to be tracked via 1090ES ADS-B for internation ...

Use of motorcycles helmets significantly reduces the risk of fatality or serious brain injury to riders in the event of a crash, but riders often do not wear helmets in warm weather because of thermal discomfort. We propose to develop an innovative ventilation and cooling system that will maintain a cool, dry environment inside the helmet while also meeting applicable safety standards. The key the ...

LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED IN A STRATIFIED TOW TANK ARE PROPOSED TO CHARACTERIZE VORTEX WAKES UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ATOMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE. FLOW RESEARCH HAS DEVELOPED INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES FOR STRATIFYING THE FLUID IN THE TANK, GENERATING A CURRENT SHEAR AND CREATING AMBIENTTURBULENCE WITH GOOD CONTROL. SUCH CAPABILITIES WOULD FACILITATE THE ISOLATION OF THE EFFECTS OF THE DISTURBANCE S ...

KaZaK Composites, Kaman Sciences and Dr. Malcolm Ray of the University of Iowa propose to investigate the design of energy absorbing utility poles made from composite materials. This team has considerable experience in the multiple technologies needed to successfully complete the proposed program, including design of high performance composite products for automated production and design, analysi ...

For more than three decades, transportation planners have relied on survey data collected specifically for the development of travel forecasting models, which are expensive to collect and maintain on an ongoing basis. There is a plethora of data collected for other reasons that could potentially support transportation planning which is becoming more accessible through technological advances. Use ...

Railroad Freight car safety and maintenance cost is directly related to knowledge of the actual braking force provided by a brake shoe. If the brake force is too low, safety is at risk. If the brake shoe is replaced before the end of it's lifetime to ensure safety, maintenance and thus operating costs are increased. Currently there is no system in place to monitor brake shoe force during train ...

In Phase I, we have developed new pedestrian detection and tracking techniques based on stereo images. Our system comprises a number of key modules including (1) disparity layered thresholding method that can be used to extract the potential pedestrian(s) layer by layer; (2) pedestrian detectiona and discrimination using 3D convex feature that can be used to detect the pedestrian in each disparity ...