| Description |
In response to the public mandate and governments directives the automotive industry strives to develop and implement new technologies to increase safety of passenger vehicles. Supported by the advances in sensor technologies, which have resulted in increased situational awareness capabilities of modern vehicles, as well as the incorporation of drive-by-wire control systems to perform driver assist and safety functions, the automotive community has embarked towards the increase of the level of autonomy in the operation of passenger vehicles with the aim of reducing road accidents and/or their implications. With this research we propose the study of driving techniques used by expert (race) drivers to maintain control of their vehicle in extreme situations, explore their benefit in accident avoidance and encapsulate them within a rigorous mathematical framework. It is envisioned that the expert driver knowledge and techniques studied and reproduced by mathematical models will be implemented in novel active safety systems, which will take advantage of the situational awareness capabilities of modern vehicles to detect an impeding accident and correct or even override the driver’s commands in order to (semi-) autonomously perform evasive accident avoidance maneuvers.
The applicant has recently joined the faculty of the School of Engineering and Design at Brunel University after spending nearly nine years in post-graduate and post-doctorate research in the United States. The International Reintegration Grant will play a key roll in his pursuit of a permanent (tenured) position with an established higher education and research institution within the European Union. The IRG will allow the researcher to initiate his research program and enhance his research output through a project of high scientific and social impact. In addition, the proposed work has the potential to lead to long lasting alliances between universities in the European Union and the United States.
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