A Look Ahead: the US IVI Program in 2001
IVsource.net
24 April 2001

Activity in the US Government's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative program is ramping up this year.  This article describes a variety of planned activities, gives a summary of progress, and provides an outlook in the areas of truck and car operational testing, human factors / driver behavior studies, joint research with the auto industry, and program planning for the next decade.  Perspectives of program officials are offered throughout.

With new Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta at the helm and a multi-faceted  program in place, the US Department of Transportation's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) program is poised to enter an even greater  level of activity this year in research, development, testing, and evaluation of intelligent vehicle and cooperative vehicle-highway systems.

By the end of this year, program officials expect to have two more operational tests underway, adding to the four current efforts.  Over one hundred vehicles will be on the road collecting data to support safety evaluations, covering both "Generation 0" and "Generation 1" type systems  -- these include lane departure warning systems (LDWS), electronically controlled braking, adaptive cruise control, rollover countermeasures, drowsy driver countermeasures, rear impact warning, and forward collision warning.  Areas such as LDWS promise results in a timely fashion relative to market offerings -- "we're with the power curve this time, providing evaluation results that can truly be helpful to industry," says Ray Resendes, USDOT's IVI Program Manager.  Annual program funding is so far holding steady at around $25M under the new administration.

Current Happenings

The current suite of operational tests consists of Volvo Trucks North America working with a US Xpress fleet of 50 trucks to test the effectiveness of Electronically Controlled Braking Systems (which can reduce stopping distance and improve braking performance), Collision Warning Systems, and Adaptive Cruise Control; Freightliner equipping  six Praxair trucks with a Rollover Stability Advisor, Rollover Stability Controller, and Lane Tracker; Mack Trucks outfitting 36 McKenzie Tank Lines trucks with Lane Departure Warning, Automatic Collision Notification, and a new feature called Trucker Safety Advisories; and Minnesota DOT equipping a fleet of snowplows with collision warning and both magnetic and DGPS-based lane tracking for low visibility operations (MnDOT snowplow drivers just finished a successful period of shakedown tests, driving their vehicles accurately on a test track road with the windshield totally covered, relying only on the road position indicator in the cab).

Interestingly, the Trucker Safety Advisory feature in the Mack IVI project represents a new level of cooperation between state DOTs and the trucking community -- here, states are identifying truck "trouble spots" that are well known to locals but often surprise truckers unfamiliar with the area, such as tight freeway ramps and unusual intersections.  These are coded into a database of "geo-cells" which is downloaded into the truck computer.  When the on-board GPS indicates that the truck is entering a trouble spot, an advisory message is provided to the driver one mile ahead of the area, allowing increased vigilance and appropriate driving countermeasures to be taken.  The Mack team has successfully recruited 14 states so far (including almost all of the states in the target area of the southeastern US), and expects to have over 300 geo-cells in the database when the trucks hit the road in April.  Commercial Vehicle authorities at the state level are enthusiastic about this new user service, as it gives them an avenue to communicate safety information directly with truck drivers on their roads.

In 2001, data collection for some of the heavy truck operational tests will be nearly complete, with others in the startup phase -- for instance, Minnesota DOT will field its fleet of driver-assisted snowplows late this year following shakedown testing during this past winter.

Definition of collision avoidance systems for transit buses continues as well, which is a preliminary step towards operational testing in future years.  Performance specification work for frontal collision avoidance, rear impact warning, and lane change / merge performance is ongoing at San Mateo Transit, Ann Arbor Transit, and Pittsburgh Transit, respectively.

Multi-Year Efforts Paying Off

Long term efforts are bearing fruit as well -- the National Advanced Driving Simulator will begin operation after years of development; the research phase of drowsy driver countermeasures will transition into operational testing; and vehicles equipped with forward collision warning under the GM-NHTSA Advanced Collision Avoidance Systems programs will be nearing road-readiness.

These government activities are occurring within a climate in which the vehicle industry cranks ahead with telematics and takes a "white hat" posture concerning driver distractions.  They seek to move the attention to means of maintaining "driver focus," postulating new systems which monitor the complexity of surrounding traffic to realize intelligent driver-vehicle interfaces and offer "driver workload management."   And drivers in increasing numbers of cars and trucks will be assisted by products such as night vision, adaptive cruise control, rear-end collision warning, blind spot warning, and lane departure warning.

Joint Governance Becomes Reality

Significantly, 2001 will finally see the start of work for the Enabling Technology Consortium, under a roughly $14M multi-year agreement signed between USDOT and a group of automakers consisting of DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, and Toyota.  The government came under increasing criticism during 2000 due to delays in negotiating what has been put forward as the flagship initiative in "joint governance" of the IVI program.  The single greatest factor in the negotiations was intellectual property, particularly the public sharing of data collected during testing.  The issues are ultimately resolvable, but they just take time, according to Resendes, who also noted that "we are quite pleased to be bringing Japanese automakers formally into the IVI program," expanding USDOT's major ITS partnerships beyond the US Big Three.

The joint research, which will also involve Navigation Technologies, Inc., will focus on development of advanced crash testing methodologies, driver workload research, and requirements definition and feasibility studies for highly detailed map databases to support crash avoidance systems.

Advances in digital map databases, by the way, are barreling along, fueled by automotive OEM interest in maps to support Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).  Here, an entirely new level of accuracy is needed, in order to supply features such as lane configuration.  The mapping industry is responding -- for instance, Navigation Technologies is planning to release ADAS-level digital maps for Germany in early 2002, followed closely by a release for the US.

Understanding Drivers Better

"In 2001, you'll see more activity on human factors, driver workload, and driver distraction," says Jeff Paniati, ITS Program Manager within the USDOT's ITS Joint Program Office.  In particular, a naturalistic driving study (potentially involving up to  10,000 vehicles / drivers) will begin this year, to complement existing human factors work.  Noting that large-scale studies on the basic science of normal driving were not practical  in the past due to cost and complexity of earlier technology, Paniati added that "the things we could learn for all of our programs are tremendous; there  are so many holes in our basic knowledge of driving and driver behavior."

Human Factors Rises to the Front

Responding to the Transportation Research Board IVI Review Panel's recommendation last year to strengthen the human factors focus within the IVI program, USDOT has created an IVI Human Factors team, functioning at the same organizational level as the vehicle platform activities.  Mike Perel of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration within USDOT has been appointed to this post, supported by Tom Granda of the Federal Highway Adminstration's Research division and Ron Knipling of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.  They are currently conducting an inventory of ongoing and past HF work in order to identify research gaps and develop an HF IVI plan to guide future years.  The plan is targeted for completion in June.

More Action in Light Vehicles and Infrastructure

A Request for Applications for a new light vehicle field operational test (FOT) of IVI systems is expected to be released in late winter of 2001, according to program officials.  This initiative is in response to direction from Congress in the FY2001 Appropriations Bill.  Based on previous solicitations, it is likely that the government will require that proposing teams be led by automotive manufacturers or first-tier suppliers.

Once that both this activity and drowsy driver countermeasures testing are awarded later in 2001, "we will have six FOTs underway -- this is an unprecedented level of activity," Resendes says, indicating the vigor of the IVI program.  In addition, the US Infrastructure Consortium will be well into research projects for Intersection Collision Avoidance.

Keeping the World Up to Date

As a follow-up to last July's National IVI Meeting, USDOT plans to do another such event in May 2002, complementing the Caltrans Demo 2002 in late summer.  This time, DOT's event is expected to more strongly emphasize vehicle demonstrations, as there will be many vehicles to display and demonstrate at that time, given ongoing activities in the IVI program.  Also, the government has opted to begin releasing an annual IVI report each April, which will be modeled along the lines of a corporate report for shareholders: short, to the point, and focusing on program progress.

New Vision Sought

USDOT program managers are keen on working with industry players and other stakeholders to define a new vision for ITS, with IVI systems a central focus.  "For TEA-22, we need a new vision to get behind, beyond the ITS story from the 1990's," says Jeff Paniati.  This is why he asked ITS America to initiate the development of a Ten Year Research Plan, through extensive involvement of ITS America committees.  This is the right venue to consider new activities in cooperative vehicle-highway systems and vehicle-highway automation, he says.

Results of this planning effort will feed into USDOT's proposal for what is commonly called "TEA-22," the successor legislation to the current TEA-21 (which runs through 2003).  Cooperative infrastructure is expected to play a much bigger role in TEA-22 -- "we've initiated numerous projects in autonomous vehicle-based safety systems during TEA-21 and this work is rolling along well; now is the time to take the next step" in cooperative systems development, say program officials.

Putting a Dent in Congestion

Here, as well, is the opportunity for USDOT to return to advanced vehicle control systems R&D and operational testing, which continues to hold the shining promise of improving traffic flow and putting a dent in congestion.  While safety systems address the "spot tragedies" of roadway crashes, systems to optimize traffic flow can address the "distributed tragedy" of congestion, which undermines the productivity and quality of life for millions of Americans.  Our sense at IVsource is that this vision must be advocated also at the state and local level for a strong national program to materialize in TEA-22, however.  A group of eleven states participating in the recently formed Cooperative Vehicle Highway Automation Systems pooled fund study, chaired by Caltrans, hold promise in this regard.

Late this year, the USDOT plans to initiate listening sessions on IVI and ITS Safety to support development of the Administration's proposal for TEA-22 -- an excellent opportunity to let your voice be heard.

For More Information ...

... on the USDOT's IVI program, access www.its.dot.gov on the web.

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