Loughborough University -School of Civil and Building Engineering; Aeronautics and Automobile Engineering

Automobile automation includes information provision, navigation support, cruise control, emergency braking, automated stopping, automated steering, automated parking and coordinated highway driving (platoons). One of the major functionalities of autonomous vehicles is to fully avoid traffic collisions. However, imprecise data on positions and velocities of surrounding traffic can compromise safety of autonomous vehicles as well as other vehicles. Furthermore, possible sensor or actuator failures and ambiguous motion planning (due to imperfect measurements under the conditions of uncertainty) may also pose a potential threat to the safe operation of autonomous vehicles.

Traditional accident prediction models are normally segment- or area-based that largely ignore vehicle-based factors and interactions with other vehicles and/or objects (both static and dynamic). The development of a new accident model will therefore be challenging as internal factors (e.g. sensor failures, imprecise measurements, other conditions of uncertainty in motion planning) need to be integrated with external factors such as current and projected positions and velocities of other participating road users, level of traffic flow, traffic mix and density as well as road geometry (slope/gradient and curvatures) in all built environments (e.g. metropolitan, urban, suburban, rural, dual carriageway, single carriageway, junctions, roundabouts) and weather conditions.

In this PhD project, new accident risk models will be developed by integrating internal factors (e.g. sensor failures, imprecise measurements, other conditions of uncertainty in motion planning) with external factors (e.g. current and projected positions and velocities of other participating road users, level of traffic flow, traffic mix and density as well as road geometry) in all built environments (e.g. metropolitan, urban, suburban, rural, dual carriageway, single carriageway, junctions, roundabouts) and weather conditions.

For more information: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AGD191/phd-studentship/