Current Research - Federal Highway Administration Exploratory Advanced Research Program

Exploratory advanced research includes foundational work that anticipates the questions and future needs in applied research or the application of innovations from other industries to the transportation sector.

Under the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) strives to develop partnerships with the public and private sectors. Further, the nature of exploratory advanced research stimulates the use of partnerships to apply ideas across traditional field of research and engage new approaches to problem solving. Accordingly, FHWA has sought and will continue to seek research partners through extensive outreach. FHWA wants to ensure all competent entities are aware of the solicitation and have an opportunity to compete for the work.

To ensure the highest technical merit, FHWA plans to continue to use peer review panels to evaluate solicitations. The panels are comprised of Federal, State, academic, and international scientific and engineering experts, who have been vetted, to avoid potential conflicts of interest. The panels frequently include multiple disciplines to better assess cross-applications and novel approaches to research. In addition to the peer review, a multidisciplinary management group within FHWA also assesses the mission focus and overall balance of projects within a round of research funding.

For more information, contact David Kuehn, david.kuehn@fhwa.dot.gov, (202) 493-3414, or Terry Halkyard, terry.halkyard@fhwa.dot.gov, (202) 493-3467.

Planned Research

Based on broad scanning conducted over the past year inside and outside traditional areas of highway research inquiry, FHWA identified six focus areas for the third round of projects under the Exploratory Advanced Research (EAR) Program:

Breakthrough Concept for Integrating Highway Safety and System Operations – This focus area can lead to revolutionary advances on Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) and Integrated Safety Systems (ISS). This focus area could result in $2 to $4 million of FHWA investment in new research in fiscal year (FY) 2009.
Nanoscale Research – This focus area includes the development of new and innovative materials and coatings as well as sensor technologies. It cuts across all functional areas and takes advantages of higher scale of investment from other agencies in support of greater system resilience, improved safety and operations and reduced environmental impacts. It could result in a similar scale of new research in FY 2009.
Massive Scale Systems – This focus area cuts across the operations functional area, in particular with regards to goods movement, as well as societal and complex systems. It could lead to development of effective multi-state or national efficient system management encompassing multiple parties and scales. Work in this area could result in up to $2 million in FHWA FY 2009 funding.
Human Behavior in Traffic – This focus area leverages research concepts from the social sciences including psychology and economics along with more traditional research for improving safety and reducing congestion. Work in this area could result in up to $2 million in FHWA funding as well in FY 2009.
Financing Highways for the Next Century – This focus encompasses both advanced policy research with technological innovations that would support new concepts in sustainable program funding. FHWA funding for research could be up to $2 million in FY 2009.
New Technology and Advanced Policies for Energy and Resource Conservation – This focus area cuts across infrastructure, operations and societal and complex natural systems to support innovative methods for reducing highway energy costs and which may include opportunities for generating new energy. FHWA funding for research could be up to $2 million in FY 2009.

Ongoing Research

FHWA is funding exploratory advanced research across the range of issues that are critical to the transportation industry. Research is listed under four broad functional areas. Functional areas describe traditionally-related areas of scientific and engineering inquiry Researchers who work within the functional areas frequently will have similar academic backgrounds in engineering, social sciences or physical sciences, -including:

Predicting societal and complex natural systems
Next generation solutions to build, maintain and manage future highways
Next generation solutions for system operations and reducing congestion and
Next generation pedestrian and driver safety

Predicting Societal and Complex Natural Systems

Project Title and Short Description	Partners	Status
Modeling the Urban Continuum in an Integrated Framework: Location Choice, Activity-Travel Behavior, and Dynamic Traffic Patterns - This project constitutes a comprehensive attempt to develop and demonstrate an integrated simulation approach that incorporates the land use patterns, dynamic travel behavior, and dynamic traffic patterns of urban systems modeling. Land use microsimulation models that attempt to simulate market dynamics (location choices) in the land sector, activity-travel behavior models that attempt to simulate the activity-travel patterns of individuals and vehicles along the continuous time axis, and dynamic traffic assignment models that attempt to simulate network dynamics and performance in real time, are key elements of this effort.	Arizona State University with the University of Arizona and the University of Washington	Underway with anticipated completion in 2011

Next Generation Solutions to Build, Maintain and Manage Future Highways

Project Title and Short Description	Partners	Status
Volumetric Particle Image Velocimetry (VPIV) System for Experimental Bridge Scour Research – A proposed high resolution VPIV system would allow measurement of instantaneous flow volumes around bridge pier models, leading to more precise scour predictive models.	FHWA lead with Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory	Anticipate completion by 2010
Flexible Skin Areal Shear Stress and Pressure Sensing System for Experimental Bridge Scour Research – This study will explore ways to directly measure instantaneous boundary shear stresses and pressure fields for small scale bridge scour experiments to significantly advance the understanding of bridge scour problems.	FHWA lead with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory	Anticipate completion by 2010
The Composite Behavior and the Design Requirements of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil (GRS) Structures – This research will seek to understand how geosynthetic reinforcement interacts with compacted soil to allow for more effective and rational design guidance of GRS walls for highway applications.	FHWA lead	Anticipate completion by 2010
Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) for corrosion detection in reinforced concrete structures incorporating time-resolved thermography combined with three-dimensional (3-D) microwave Imaging–Corrosion of steel reinforcements is the main cause of damage and early failure of reinforced concrete structures in civil engineering. An objective, spatially resolved, and rapid corrosion inspection method could lead to cost savings of billions of dollars worldwide through the detection of corroded reinforcement in concrete at an early stage. To overcome difficulties with conventional inspection techniques, a benchmark project focuses on the promising technique of time-resolved thermography with induction heating combined with 3-D microwave imaging. [More]	National Research Council Research Associate	Underway with anticipated completion in 2010
Development of Stiffness Measuring Device for Foot Pad Roller Sensor for Pavements – The aim is to develop a measurement approach to determine mechanistic soil properties (e.g. stiffness, modulus) continuously in real time during static compaction of fine and mixed grain soils with a pad-foot roller compactor.	Colorado School of Mines, Division of Engineering with Caterpillar Inc. and other roller manufacturers	Underway
High Performance Stress-Relaxing Cementitious Composites for Crack Free Pavements and Transportation Structures – The research is attempting a crosscutting and bold approach to address the issue of cracking in concrete pavements and structures. The research study proposes new concepts to prevent or reduce cracks, which are a major problem in portland cement concrete. If successful, the project can point the way to a new use of nanoscale- to microscale inclusions in the concrete to enable it to relax a little under stress, thus reducing harmful cracking in concrete pavements.	Texas A&M University, Texas Transportation Institute	Underway with anticipated completion in 2009
Development and Demonstration of System-Based Monitoring Approaches for Improved infrastructure Management Under Uncertainty – This research will develop a novel integrated framework for improved infrastructure management, using novel sensing technologies, deterioration models, and decisionmaking tools.	University of Central Florida with Lehigh University and Florida DOT	Underway with completion anticipated in 2010

Next Generation Solutions for System Operations and Reducing Congestion

Project Title and Short Description	Partners	Status
Advanced Integration of Private Sector Freight Information with Public Sector Traffic Information to Reduce Metropolitan Congestion (Freight Congestion Mitigation Decision Support System)	SAIC with Kansas City Cross Town Improvement Project (C-TIP)	Underway
Next Generation of Smart Traffic Signals – A self-adaptive traffic signal system that observes (through camera and other sensors) the traffic in the network, predicts the traffic demands and conditions, and sets phase durations to optimize an objective specified by the jurisdiction.	University of Arizona ATLAS Center with City of Tucson and Maricopa County	Underway
Development and Evaluation of Selected Mobility Applications for VII – Research will design, test, and evaluate three innovative ways of using wireless communication capabilities from VII to improve mobility.	California PATH Program with Caltrans	Underway
Intelligent Multi-Sensor Measurements to Enhance Vehicle Navigation and Safety Systems – This research aims to develop an accurate, robust, and reliable vehicle positioning system capable of providing accurate high-update-rate lane-level measurements for future navigation and control (safety) systems.	Auburn University GPS and Vehicle Dynamics Lab with IBEO Automobile Sensors	Underway with anticipated completion in 2010
Intersection Control For Autonomous Vehicles – Research will consider the impact of autonomous vehicles on urban traffic infrastructure, specifically at intersections. The aim is to dramatically decrease time wasted at intersections and increase vehicle throughput on roads.	University of Texas at Austin	Underway

Next Generation Pedestrian and Driver Safety

Project Title and Short Description	Partners	Status
Advanced Research on the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) Algorithm - This project is designed to further refine this advanced mathematical concept and explore its potential applications in highway safety, infrastructure, and environment. The research consists of two broad fronts of studies: to improve the presently available EMD algorithms and to establish a rigorous mathematical foundation for the generalized adaptive data analysis methodology. The success of the first will enhance immediate improvement of information management in a complex or significantly rich signal data system, such as the Integrated Safety System (ISS) being considered by FHWA or for full scale traffic control systems. The success of the second research area would enable drastic improvement of robustness and reliability of the algorithm and guarantees its further applications. The project is managed by the Office of Safety R&D.	Princeton University, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Center for Ocean Land Atmospheric Studies	Underway with anticipated completion in 2011
Development of Methodologies to Evaluate the Nighttime Safety Implications of the Roadway Visual Scene Under Varying Cognitive Task Loads - This cooperative agreement aims to integrate new technology and identify a dynamic driver visual model to improve nighttime driving safety. The research is designed to develop a model framework of human visual perception in the driving environment that is comprehensive yet simple enough to derive probabilistic forecasts of driver performance under given visual conditions. An important aspect of the research is development of a combined driver/roadway monitoring system, which combines two existing systems, an infrared eye tracker and a dynamic photometer, into a unified system which also links to in-vehicle instrumentation. The project is managed by the Office of Safety R&D.	Virginia Tech Transportation Institute with Texas Transportation Institute and Franklin & Marshall College	Underway with anticipated completion in 2010
Human Factors for Limited-Ability Autonomous Driving Systems - This project proposes to study the human factors aspects of limited automated driving systems. The research will address a number of concerns pertaining to these systems including drivers becoming over-reliant upon the systems, drivers evoking such systems outside of design parameters and drivers not being aware when the systems are not operating as intended. Expected outcomes are the impact of human factors on performance of automated systems and better definition of roles of drivers using such systems in a variety of scenarios. The project is managed by the Office of Safety R&D.	General Motors Corporation and Delphi Corporation	Underway with anticipated completion in 2011
Making Driving Simulators More Useful for Behavioral Research - Under this contract, the researchers will evaluate issues related to the use of interactive driving simulators in highway safety and operations research. Driving behavior in simulators will be correlated to driving behavior in the real world. The influences of visual, auditory, and haptic fidelity will be investigated. The proposed research will develop a theoretical model of the relationship between driver performance in interactive driving simulators and driving performance in real vehicles on real roads.	University of Iowa with Western Transportation Institute, Montana State University, Battelle Memorial Institute, Entropy Control, Inc., and William H. Levison Associates	Underway with completion anticipated in 2011
Layered Object Recognition System for Pedestrian Collision Sensing – Research will develop a real-time, in-vehicle, vision-only system that detects moving or stationary pedestrians on sidewalks and along roadways with high accuracy and a very low false alarm rate.	Sarnoff Corporation with AutoLiv Electronics America	Underway
Increased Understanding of Driver Visibility Requirements – Research will develop a rational theoretical framework for determining the quantity and quality of visual information needed by drivers to navigate the roadway safely and effectively.	SAIC with NIST and Texas Transportation Institute	Underway