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Volpe Center Highlights

Published and Presented

Letter from the Director | Focus | Safety | Environmental Stewardship | Published and Presented

• Final Report on Automobile Crash Avoidance Technologies. For the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Dr. Wassim Najm, Mr. Jonathan Koopmann, and Mr. John Hitz, all of the Advanced Safety Technology Division, and Dr. Mary Stearns and Dr. Heidi Howarth of the Human Factors Division produced a final report on the independent evaluation of an automotive collision avoidance system built by General Motors and Delphi. "Evaluation of an Automotive Rear-End Collision Avoidance System" (DOT VNTSC-NHTSA-06-01, DOT HS 810 569) provides the results of a 2000—2005 effort by the Volpe Center. It can be downloaded from www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departments/nrd-12/pubs_rev.html.

• Intelligent Transportation Systems. Mr. Scott Smith of the Service and Operations Planning Division co-authored "On-Line Deployment of Dynamic Traffic Assignment: Architecture and Run Time Management," published in the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) Proceedings in Intelligent Transport Systems, v. 153, n. 1, March 2006, pp. 76-84. The other authors, who are affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are Yang Wen (primary author), Ramachandran Balakrishna, and Moshe Ben-Akiva.

• Aviation Noise and Air Quality Symposium. Staff from Volpe's Environmental Measurement and Modeling Division presented at the Aviation Noise and Air Quality Symposium in Berkeley, California, March 6, 2006. See the presentations at www.techtransfer.berkeley.edu/aviation06
  downloads.

  • "Modeling Supplemental Metrics with INM v.6.2," Mr. Eric Boeker. For the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Volpe Center developed and supports INM, the Integrated Noise Model, which is used for evaluation of aircraft noise impacts near airports in 30 countries.

  • "FAA/AEE's Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT)," Mr. Gregg Fleming. The Volpe Center is leading the effort to develop AEDT, a multifaceted and comprehensive new tool that will enable integrated noise and emission modeling on a range of scales, from local to global.

• Aircraft Wake Vortex Classification. Dr. James Hallock, Senior Technical Expert for Air and Space Transportation Safety, continues his leading research on aircraft wake vortices. Dr. Hallock presented a paper titled "757 Wake Classification Analysis" at the WakeNet USA meeting in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, March 28—31, 2006. The paper was coauthored with Ms. Melanie Soares of the Advanced Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) Division. The 300 model of the B757 is treated as a heavy aircraft based on its maximum gross certificated takeoff weight. However, the analysis shows that the 300 model wake vortices are no different than the 200 model vortices; therefore, the B757-300 need not be assigned an additional 1-nautical-mile separation during approach and landing operations.

• Automobile Crash Avoidance Technologies Evaluated. At the 2006 World Congress of Automotive Engineers in Detroit, Michigan, April 3—6 2006, Volpe Center and National Highway Safety Administration sponsor staff members presented the results of research on crash avoidance technologies.

  • "Performance of a Rear-End Crash Avoidance System in a Field Operational Test, " Dr. Wassim Najm and Mr. Jonathan Koopmann of the Advanced Safety Technology Division. This paper addresses the efficacy of forward-looking sensors on automobiles to track targets, the efficacy of the alert logic in warning the driver to driving conflicts that may lead to rear-end crashes, and the effectiveness of the driver-vehicle interface to display safety-critical information.

  • "Exploratory Analysis of Pre-Crash Sensing Countermeasures," Mr. Ron Pack of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Dr. Wassim Najm and Mr. Jonathan Koopmann of the Advanced Safety Technology Division. This paper provides results from a technology review of pre-crash sensing systems, identification of applicable crashworthiness scenarios, and estimation of safety benefits for brake-assist and driver-seat-position adjustment measures.

• 2006 ASME/IEEE Joint Rail Conference. Two papers by Volpe Center staff were published in the proceedings of the 2006 Joint Rail Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, April 4—6, 2006, co-sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Vehicular Technology Society. The documents are available through www.volpe.dot.gov/sdd/pubs-crash.html.

  • "Overview of a Crash Energy Management Specification for Passenger Rail Equipment," Mr. David Tyrell, Mr. Eloy Martinez, Ms. Karina Jacobsen, Mr. Daniel Parent, Ms. Kristine Severson, Ms. Michelle Priante, and Dr. Benjamin Perlman of the Structures and Dynamics Division. JRC2006-94044, April 2006.

  • "Effectiveness of Alternative Rail Passenger Equipment Crashworthiness Strategies," Ms. Karina Jacobsen, Ms. Kristine Severson, and Dr. Benjamin Perlman of the Structures and Dynamics Division. JRC2006-94043, April 2006.

• Public Meeting on the Benefits of Advanced Crash Avoidance Systems. The U.S. DOT hosted a public meeting in Ypsilanti, Michigan, April 20—21, 2006, to present results from two recently completed light vehicle field operational tests (FOTs) of prototype collision warning systems, the Automotive Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) and the Roadway Departure Collision Warning (RDCW). (See www.itsa.org/usdot_public
  _meeting.html.) The ACAS FOT focused on the development and evaluation of adaptive cruise control and forward collision warning systems, while the RDCW FOT considered lane departure and curve speed warning systems to prevent roadway departure collisions. Volpe Center staff from the Advanced Safety Technology Division played a key role in evaluating these technologies. Dr. Bruce Wilson presented a paper titled "Preliminary Results of the Road Departure Crash Warning System (RDCW) Independent Evaluation." Dr. Wassim Najm presented the following three papers: "Computing Safety Benefits and Sources of Data," "Independent Evaluation of Automotive Collision Avoidance System (ACAS)," and "Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety System (IVBSS) Scenarios/Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) Activities."

• Position Location and Navigation Symposium. Ms. Karen Van Dyke of the Advanced Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) Technologies Division presented "Development of a GNSS Performance Monitoring System (GPMS)" at a symposium jointly sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Institute of Navigation in San Diego, California, April 25—27, 2006.