North Carolina Center for Automotive Research to work with Universities & Industry to Improve Driver Safety

Northampton County, NC – North Carolina State University (NCSU), the New Jersey Institute of Technology(NJIT) and Lotus Engineering have announced a joint collaboration with the North Carolina Center for Automotive Research (NCCAR) in the pursuit of advanced technology aimed at increasing driver safety through accident avoidance.

It was announced on August 13, 2008 that the collaborative team will receive $ 395,068 in National Science Foundation (NSF) GOALI funding over three years to develop technologies that will provide assistance to impaired drivers to avoid road traffic accidents.

The NSF uses the “Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry” to encourage collaborative programs between academic institutions and industry: nsf.gov - Engineering (ENG) Funding - Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry - US National Science Foundation (NSF). This GOALI effort is a synergistic development of theoretical analysis with industrial application and follows the spirit of a recent National Science Board “Science and Engineering Indicator” calling for greater intellectual interchange between academic and industrial researchers.

The overall objective of the program is to develop advanced warning systems that use modern sensor technology combined with new generation recognition and data prioritization protocols to help drivers avoid dangerous traffic conditions, such as an unauthorized left turn onto busy roads or abnormal driving behavior.

This program is inspired, in part, by the collaborators experience in the recent DARPA Urban Challenge; whereby, vehicles navigated pre-determined routes autonomously. The intent is to build a new generation of network control technology to monitor, predict, and regulate vehicular flow for the safety of all drivers in the near future. This technology has the additional potential to reduce fuel wastage and emissions, thereby contributing to a greener and safer environment.

”This research program is a great opportunity to use experience, skills and ingenuity to develop commercially valuable and socially responsible technologies that will benefit us all,” stated Don Graunstadt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lotus Engineering Inc., “Lotus Engineering is delighted to be a part of this program with the tremendous capabilities of New Jersey Institute of Technology and North Carolina State University and the facilities of NCCAR.”

As automotive safety continues to improve, and, with the arrival of the “baby boomer generation” entering their “golden years” the safety of older drivers is becoming an alarming public health issue. Motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among 65- to 74-year olds. On the basis of estimated annual travel, the fatality rate for drivers 85 and older is 9 times higher than the rate for drivers 25 to 69 years old. As the older population in this country continues to increase, drivers aged 65 and older are expected to account for 16% of all crashes and 25% of all fatal crashes.

This program intends to develop technology that is socially responsible and will benefit a large section of the population.

The first phase of the program activities will start with senior design projects at NCSU and NJIT Electrical and Computer Engineering departments this fall. The objective will be to develop interactive software tools to form the foundation of time-critical data systems testing at NCCAR later in the program.

NCCAR aims to become a center of excellence for automotive engineering in the fields of vehicle on-board data management, efficiency, safety, sustainability and refinement.

About NCCAR: The North Carolina Center for Automotive Research (NCCAR) is a modern automotive testing facility for use in the design, development, testing and certification of advanced vehicle technologies, sub-systems and components. NCCAR is a State funded initiative that is designed to combine the resources and skills of North Carolina's industries, academic institutions and strategies to put North Carolina at the front of advanced vehicle technologies and hence jobs The Research Center is a public-private partnership that matches the talents of multi-national automotive companies with those of North Carolina's leading universities. NCCAR is world class and focused on next generation research and development in the automotive industry. For more information, www.nccar.us

About NCSU Network Controls Systems:
Dr. Mo-Yuen Chow has been working on time-sensitive network control systems and fault diagnosis in complex systems. He has investigated time- and data- sensitive network control systems, network-delay compensation, and development methodology of biologically inspired technologies including artificial neural network and artificial immune systems for fault diagnosis in complex systems. For more information please visit, http://www.adac.ncsu.edu/

About NJIT Intelligent Systems:
Dr. Timothy Chang has been working in the areas of ultra-high precision systems, genetic systems, robotics/motion control, traffic control systems, vehicle dynamics and control, decentralized control systems, and network control systems. In this NSF GOALI project, he is responsible for modeling, optimization, control design, and experimental digital hardware implementation. For more information please visit, http://ece.njit.edu/people/int_sys.php

About Lotus Engineering Inc.:
Lotus Engineering is an internationally recognized automotive engineering consultant based in Norfolk, UK. Its global facilities include those in Michigan and North Carolina, USA and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and offices in Germany and China. It provides comprehensive and versatile consultancy services to many of the world's car manufacturers and tier one automotive suppliers, from initial concept and project design through development to full production prototype build.
For more information please visit, http://www.grouplotus.com