Momentum - March 2020 - 12

BRIEFS
SPARTAN VILLAGE AS TESTING GROUND
Under a holistic
approach called CANVAS
(Connected and
Autonomous Vehicles for
Active Safety), Michigan
State University's
main campus, Spartan
Village, is being
transformed into a
testing ground for a new
era in transportation.
MSU engineers, urban
planners, sociologists,
Michigan State University's
business professors,
AutoDrive Challenge team/car
and legal experts are
constitutes one way in which the
using the campus as
university is studying autonomous
a giant laboratory in
vehicles as part of a larger focus on
which to study the
mobility. The AutoDrive Challenge
future of mobility. The
is a collegiate competition
research follows two
co-headline-sponsored by SAE
paths. The academic
International and General Motors.
side is inventing, testing,
and deploying smart cars and the smart infrastructure
necessary to guide them safely and securely, as well
as considering the social implications of such a major
change. On the campus operations level, experts are
collaborating to assess and address the day-to-day
mobility needs at MSU now and in the future.

TRACKING THE MYSTERY OF NATURE'S
TOUGHEST MATERIAL
Nacre, the
Image credit: Hovden Lab
rainbowsheened
material that
lines the insides Artist's renderings of the nanostructures of
nacre (left), prismatic calcite (center), and
of mussel and
monolithic aragonite (right). The outside
other mollusk
shells, is known of fan mussel shells are made mainly of
prismatic calcite, while nacre is made up
as nature's
mainly of aragonite.
toughest
material. A team of researchers led by the University
of Michigan has revealed precisely how it works, in real
time. More commonly known as mother-of-pearl, nacre's
combination of hardness and resilience has mystified
scientists for more than 80 years. If humans could mimic
it, it could lead to a new generation of ultra-strong
synthetic materials for structures, surgical implants,
and countless other applications including vehicles of
all kinds. Among other things, researchers found that,
unlike plastics, for example, nacre loses none of its
resilience after repeated impacts. This property owes to
a special locking feature of the material's microscope
"bricks" that occurs when stress is applied.
12 March 2020

2003_briefs_12-13.indd 12

FLORIDA POLY BOOSTS AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE
RESEARCH
Florida Polytechnic
University will soon
have a new simulation
facility on campus
dedicated to the testing
and verification of
autonomous vehicle
technology in real-time.
The National Science
Foundation awarded the
University a $350,000
Student research assistant James Holland works
grant that enables the
with assistant professor of electrical engineering Dr.
development of a large- Arman Sargolzaei on autonomous vehicle technology
scale Hardware-in-theresearch. Florida Polytechnic University will have
Loop (HiL) simulation
a new simulation facility for real-time testing of
facility for connected
this technology, thanks to a new National Science
Foundation grant.
and autonomous
vehicles (CAVs). HiL
simulation is a robust gateway for the development and testing of
complex real-time embedded systems. The HiL simulation facility will
provide researchers from the Florida Poly's Advanced mobility Institute
a more realistic approach to the testing and verification procedures
as they collaborate closely with students on practical and real-world
projects related to CAVs.

VIRGINIA TECH STUDIES OVER-RELIANCE ON
AUTONOMY
A recent study on SAE
Level 2 autonomous
vehicles conducted
by the Virginia Tech
Transportation Institute
found that of the 71
recorded safety-critical
Image credit: Mercedes-Benz
events (SCE's) in the
study, "no statistical
According to recent studies addressing ADAS Level-2
relationships were
effectiveness, the systems may be living up to their
billing.
observed between
SCE rates and feature
activation level." This seems to indicate that drivers were not overreliant on the ADAS (advanced drive-assistance systems) capabilities.
Concern about over-reliance on such systems was the focus of the
report. None of the SCEs had the automated systems request the
driver to intervene (known as an RTI), which seems to indicate,
according to the study, that when a critical situation presented itself,
drivers were paying sufficient attention.

MOMENTUM

2/17/20 10:51 AM

Momentum - March 2020

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