While some students may think Patrick F. Taylor Hall is made up of typical lecture halls and engineering classrooms, they may not know about the driving simulator on the second floor.
Sherif Ishak, professor and undergraduate coordinator of the University’s civil engineering program, and graduate research assistant Julius Codjoe are working on starting a new research project with the simulator.
The new project will examine V2V, or Vehicle-to-Vehicle, research.
“No one has used a simulator for this yet,” Codjoe said. “It isn’t mainstream yet.”
Ishak said V2V research looks at how vehicles may exchange information between one another when said vehicles are connected to Wi-Fi.
Despite the large number of traffic and map applications such as Google Maps and MapQuest, Ishak says V2V communication is different.
According to Ishak, web applications can give you an idea of congestion and traffic problems, but not immediate information, but V2V communication allows for immediate reporting.
Ishak said he is hoping to create an upstream to downstream flow of information to accomplish that immediate reporting.
“For example, if you were on Highland driving toward I-10, you would be able to get information from somebody driving on College,” Ishak said.
Codjoe and Ishak both said that a device making this possible would display a map to the driver.
“Give it a few years time, and they’ll come up with portable devices to plug into your car and make V2V active,” Codjoe said.
The new research idea is not currently funded but has been well-received by the Louisiana Transportation Research Center, Ishak said.
The driving simulator was an investment, costing a total of $271,000 in 2010, according to Ishak. The majority of funding, $247,000, came from the Louisiana Board of Regents, the Civil and Environmental Engineering department and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. The University funded the remainder.
The University has already conducted two research projects about distracted driving and driving in extreme weather conditions using the simulator.
The first of the projects studied how texting, phone conversations and conversations with passengers impacted a driver’s behavior.
“Analysis showed phone conversations were not as distracting compared to driving with tasks,” Codjoe said. “Texting had significant effects.”
Codjoe said the dialing process was the most destructive, causing drivers to diverge from their respective traffic lanes.
The second project primarily tested how drivers could perform under hurricane conditions.
“We used models of wind force and direction to estimate if and when a driver would no longer be in control of his or her vehicle,” Ishak said.
Codjoe said he decided to come to the University for his Ph.D. over the University of Florida because of the research opportunities the driving simulator provided.
“It is a great tool for interdisciplinary research,” Ishak said “ It can help attract more research funding from the state and federal government.”
“No one has used a simulator for this yet. It isn’t mainstream yet.”
University uses driving simulator for vehicle-to-vehicle research
By Renee Barrow
January 20, 2014