Spring 2000

ME/IE 8773-8774

DRIVER ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR HIGHWAY VEHICLES

by

Craig Shankwitz, Ph.D.
Program Director for the Intelligent Vehicles Lab
Mechanical Engineering Department
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Wednesday, March 22, 2000
3:35 - 4:25 p.m.
Room 108 ME
Broadcast on UNITE Channel A
Coffee will be available in 152 ME following the seminar

The Intelligent Vehicles Lab at the University of Minnesota continues to develop technologies to assist the motoring public deal with common problems including low visibility, increased traffic congestion, and highway maintenance. At the present time, the main focus of the Lab is to integrate radar based collision warning/avoidance, DGPS based longitudinal and lateral guidance, high accuracy geo-spatial databases, haptic feedback, and a bright, high contrast Head Up Display (HUD) into an integrated Driver Assistive Package. This particular system is designed to assist drivers in low visibility situations, which include blowing and drifting snow, fog, rain, sleet, and darkness.

The technologies behind this Driver Assistive Package will be discussed in detail. This technology is also featured in a three year U.S. DOT Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) Field Operational Test. The field operational test will be described along with future directions the laboratory will be taking.

Craig Shankwitz is the Program Director for the Intelligent Vehicles Lab in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Minnesota. He earned his B.S. at Iowa State University in 1983, an M.S. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1985, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1992. Prior to earning the Ph.D, he developed control systems for both automotive automatic transmissions (Hydra-matic Division of General Motors, 1983-1984) and paper making machines (Beloit Corporation, 1986-1987). As a Post Doc working for Professor Max Donath in Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Shankwitz was involved in the design of the SAFETRUCK research vehicle. He returned to the University from MTS Systems in 1998, where he had been designing control systems for a variety of test equipment.

Faculty Host: Prof. Max Donath