UMTRI Project

Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety Systems

Sponsor: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Investigator: David J. LeBlanc
11/23/2005 - 11/22/2009

Under a $25 million agreement, the UMTRI and partners Visteon Corp., Eaton Corp., AssistWare Technology Inc., Honda R&D Americas Inc., Battelle Memorial Institute, and the Michigan Department of Transportation are developing and testing a new, integrated crash warning system in a fleet of 16 passenger cars and 10 heavy-duty trucks. UMTRI is serving as the prime contractor, coordinating the work of the partnership and conducting the field experiments. The partners are contributing an additional $6.6 million to this effort.

The program, Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety Systems (IVBSS) Program Field Operational Test (FOT), is a cooperative agreement with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the ITS Joint Program Office (JPO) of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The program is developing integrated, advanced technologies in passenger cars and commercial heavy-duty trucks that can help drivers avoid crashes. The integrated system will warn drivers when they are about to leave the roadway, are in danger of colliding with another vehicle while attempting a lane change, or are at risk of colliding with the vehicle in front of them. This system will help to address the crash types that account for 67% of all motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. IVBSS is using information gathered by inertial, video, and radar sensors, plus a global positioning system module to prevent or lessen the impact of some crashes. The research team is developing these systems and evaluating their use by drivers when they operate one of the instrumented test vehicles for several weeks as their personal car or commercial equipment.

This research builds upon UMTRI's growing strength in naturalistic measurement of the driving process and the development of driver assistance systems. The partnership is developing the three systems in IVBSS by combining several technologies seamlessly to provide drivers with the essential information at precisely the moment they need assistance.

The program is highly multi-disciplinary and utilizes UMTRI's knowledge of the science of driving-created by deliberately bringing together engineering and social science disciplines under one roof.