Tech Refactored

S2E40 - Roadside Barriers, Test Crashes, and Enhancing Safety with Cody Stolle

May 12, 2022 Nebraska Governance and Technology Center Season 2 Episode 40
Tech Refactored
S2E40 - Roadside Barriers, Test Crashes, and Enhancing Safety with Cody Stolle
Show Notes Transcript

How do cities and states decide what roads have rails or barriers? Who designs those? What roadside factors lead to crashes? The researchers who are asking these questions are technologists, engineers, and quite literally life savers. Cody Stolle is a research professor in the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering at the University of Nebraska. He is also a researcher with the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, part of the Mid-America Transportation Center. He studies, among other things, vehicle impacts, crashworthiness, and occupant safety.

Learn more about the grant the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center gave to Cody’s team to support a project on automated vehicles.

Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and has not been thoroughly reviewed for completeness or accuracy.

[00:00:00] Gus Herwitz: This is Tech Refactored. I'm your host, Gus Herwitz, the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the University of Nebraska. Today we're joined by Cody Stolle. Cody is a research professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at the University of Nebraska.

He is also a researcher with the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, which is part of the Mid America Transportation Center. He studies, among other things, vehicle impacts crashworthiness and occupant safety. Cody, thank you for joining us on Tech Refactor. 

[00:00:53] Cody Stolle: I'm glad to be here today. 

[00:00:55] Gus Herwitz: Can we just start Cody with a bit about, um, your work and the research that you do. [00:01:00] 

[00:01:00] Cody Stolle: Certainly my work with the Midwest roadside safety facility mainly consists of aiding and abetting waits for occupants to survive roadside safety crashes. So, uh, roadside crash occurs when a vehicle departs the lanes and enters whatever is on the side of the road, whether that be a shoulder or a slope, or a ditch, or if they hit a barrier or assigned.

Anything that you might find that's adjacent to the travel lanes is the kind of features that we're gonna be evaluating through full scale crash testing, computer simulation, and straight. 

[00:01:30] Gus Herwitz: So let, let's, uh, start with a bit of the, uh, the history and evolution of this area. Obviously really important work, but I, I want to just queue up for listeners that we, we will get to some of the actual physical testing of collisions that you do, which in really simple terms is the most exciting part.

But really the work is much more important than just smashing big vehicles into, uh, things on the side of the road. So can you tell us a bit about, uh, the, the history and how, uh, this, uh, field has changed [00:02:00] over the years? 

[00:02:01] Cody Stolle: Certainly, it was back in the early days of the automobiles in the 1940s and fifties, we started to see roadside crashes resulting in fatalities and early automotive companies, like General Motors took the lead on finding solutions that would.

Occupants of vehicles against these specific types of crashes. In particular, General Motors developed a handful of barriers, which are the predecessors to a lot of our existing barriers today: cable barriers, W beams, concrete barriers, a lot of these shapes ode straight out of that work that General Motors had supported.

And over time, what we have observed is that roadside safety itself and roadside crashes continue to be a problematic element both in the United States and in the world at large. Approximately a million people. Worldwide every year from crashes for vehicles leaving the roadway specifically. And a lot of those are single vehicle crashes, as in they're not being forced off of the road by another vehicle.

Also involved in the crash. Roadside safety is greatly [00:03:00] evolved with the US as the leader they're in, and I'm glad that the Midwest roadside safety facility has been able to participate in that global elevation, um, and increase in the road safety that we've been able to achieve through improved barrier design.

Better understanding of vehicles, computer simulation models and interactions, material studies, optimized configurations and better guidelines for states, including nation states for how to better resolve their roadside issues. 

[00:03:28] Gus Herwitz: So there, there's an initial thing that, that I just have to note that I think is so fascinating and important about the entire concept of collision safety.

Um, We are assuming that accidents will happen, that people will run off the road, and I, I, I'm a lawyer, I come from the legal perspective and so much of what we try and do in the law is prevent accidents from happening and say, Are we, this is the outcome we want. No accidents, but. We know that accidents are going to happen.

[00:04:00] So the, the focus for, uh, your work in many ways is minimizing the harms, minimizing the impacts when things fail, when things go wrong. 

[00:04:10] Cody Stolle: That's correct. And that's a great way of putting it, is consequence mitigation is the number one approach now, that's part of a broader scheme of preventing a crash in the first place.

And there's many different factors that can assist in that. What we see in terms of enforcement and in terms of preventing incapacitated drivers from taking the wheel and engaging in unsafe safety or unsafe driving maneuvers that would, could potentially result in crashes. But there's a different side of it that has nothing to do with the driver, him or herself.

Or it could be that another vehicle is encroached into the lane forcing the lead vehicle off of the road. Sometimes there are avoidance maneuvers for animals that are in the road or pedestrians. Uh, there are times where me. Failures of the vehicle itself caused the vehicle to veer off of the side of the road, and weather is one of the biggest contributors.

[00:05:00] Approximately 40% of all runoff road crashes have a contribution that's just simply vehicle to road loss of interface due to weather conditions. 

[00:05:09] Gus Herwitz: So, You've used the term, uh, a couple of times, barriers or similar, uh, sorts of terms? When I think of barriers, I, I think in very simple terms, I, I don't know if this is actually the universal name.

This could be a reflection of my, having grown up on the east coast, but I think of, uh, what I call jersey walls, just concrete barriers. Um, but barriers are much more sophisticated than concrete slabs. That, I guess the, the goal of a jersey barrier. To prevent you from leaving the road. Hopefully. What, what's the role of, and what's the technology behind modern barriers and how we think about them?

[00:05:46] Cody Stolle: That's a great question. Barriers are classified into three really broad categories. The first one of which is rigid like you denoted. And in New Jersey, safety shape was one of those shapes that are used. It's been, uh, led away [00:06:00] from in recent years just due to the propensity to cause some vehicles to have an increased risk of rollover on impact.

And so they're being gradually replaced by single slope or vertical walls, but they have a very similar function. It's to contain any vehicle that hits it and prevent. Going into whatever's behind it. But then this next category is called a semi rigid barrier, a little bit of a misnomer. It allows the barrier itself to flex in front of the vehicle, capturing a lot of that impact energy and decreasing the amount of energy from that impact that goes into the vehicle and into therefore the occupant.

And then the last class of barriers is called flexible. Um, and these was what you typically would associate with cable or really weak post systems that have really large deflections. We're talking about entire vehicle. Of deflection into the system before the vehicle is captured. Generally speaking, the more flexible it is, the less expensive it is, and therefore it's economical for states to install the cheapest barrier that will still accomplish the job that it is intended to perform.[00:07:00] 

Uh, but at times you need higher capacity or you have less space and so you don't have any option but to go with a more expensive, higher containment barrier. 

[00:07:08] Gus Herwitz: So what is the, uh, job that these barriers are intended to? 

[00:07:13] Cody Stolle: In general, it is always identifying a hazard that is located behind the barrier that you don't want the vehicle to engage with.

And a hazard is a very broad classification of fixed objects, or it could be rivers or ditches. It could mean slopes. Um, you can consider a hazard, for example, an overpass. You don't want a vehicle flying off of the overpass and onto the roads below it, and so you need to contain that vehicle and keep it on that overpass.

So a hazard is anything that. Potentially behind the barrier that if your vehicle interacted with it, it could create serious risk of harm. 

[00:07:48] Gus Herwitz: And you, you also focus on crash worthiness and occupant safety. What, what's the role? How can we use barriers or how do you think about occupant safety and [00:08:00] how can we use barriers and design roadways in order to better protect vehicle occupants when they, when collisions do occur?

[00:08:08] Cody Stolle: There's a lot of effort with the collaboration of the vehicle structures and the barrier structures as well. We have made extensive use of the federal motor vehicle safety standards. It's defined the bumper height for vehicles, and that's where we tend to place a lot of our safety features. We also work with the how the vehicle reacts with its suspension to capture vehicles over the right range of heights, and that's the way we design our features to capture them.

Likewise, a lot of vehicles will have sill heights with, or the occupants head is located. Of that si we try to prevent any location or feature of the barrier from being within the range of the sill height to prevent any feature from impacting the window or the occupant themselves who sometimes extend outside of the vehicle from coming into contact with that barrier feature.

So there's a lot of synthesis and, and amalgamation of how does the vehicle geometry and the [00:09:00] vehicle's attitude, how does it interact with the barriers geometry and the barriers configuration as well.

[00:09:04] Gus Herwitz: I- It's common perception or knowledge that vehicles have gotten a lot larger over time. How does this make the, the job that you're trying to do?

I'll say more interesting. I don't know if it makes it more, more difficult necessarily. 

[00:09:21] Cody Stolle: Vehicle size is a lot to do with the vehicle weight and the weight and the mass are the biggest con contributors to how energy itself is increasing besides just the speed at which the impact occurs. So as vehicles get bigger, As they get taller, they become more unstable.

As they get heavier, they load the barriers much more, uh, firmly and create scenarios in which the barrier itself can fail or rupture or prevent that vehicle from being engaged. When we saw a surge from. Predominantly sedans and small cars in the seventies, eighties and nineties, to predominantly SUVs and compact or crossover utility vehicles and pickup trucks right now, where as much as 70% of new vehicle sales from [00:10:00] 2019 to 2021, where SUVs are light trucks.

Um, That kind of changes the game cuz it means that the geometry of these fixed roadside barrier systems, uh, really becomes critical. Can we still capture these elevated height vehicles? And so as vehicles get larger, it creates a challenge for the existing infrastructure as well as the design of new infrastructure to accommodate them.

[00:10:22] Gus Herwitz: So that goes back to the, uh, idea that you mentioned before with the, the Jersey barrier. When you have the higher center of gravity, these barriers that I, I dunno, they're probably about three foot tall. If the, uh, center of gravity goes from about two feet off the ground to three feet or higher off the ground, when the vehicle hits that, it's more likely to topple the barrier or just to get, uh, pin wheeled over the barrier.

[00:10:44] Cody Stolle: That is correct. And you don't want a scenario in which you're launching vehicles off of the top of a barrier, because in that case, that means that the barrier you designed and put in there didn't accomplish the objective. 

[00:10:56] Gus Herwitz: Yeah. In fact, it did the exact opposite in many ways. You [00:11:00] mentioned, uh uh, at the beginning of the discussion that you use a range of tools for designing and evaluating these design elements from computer simulation and also physical crash tests. Can you tell us a bit about the various tools that you use? 

[00:11:17] Cody Stolle: Certainly computer simulation is one of our most important tools that we currently use. It allows us to investigate a large number of scenarios such as vehicle differences in speed, differences in angle, different types of vehicles, different locations of impact, wherein we can study the behavior of these systems and how the vehicle is engaging with them to ensure that no matter.

The vehicle hits and how the vehicle hits that feature, the occupants inside of that vehicle are still going to be protected and safe. It also allows us to do a lot of optimization and updates on the designs themselves. But the reason we have crash testing is numerical simulation modeling isn't perfect.

There's no way we can make sure that every single possible scenario plays out exactly the way that our computer [00:12:00] simulation says that it should. And that is why it's very important for us to proceed with full scale crash testing to verify that the designs that we've created through analytical calculations, through computer simulation, through CAD and model.

Still play out the same way in real life as we see them play out according to the principles of engineering design.

[00:12:20] Gus Herwitz: And, uh, I one different reasons. I'll just be frank. Two, two of the reasons I really, uh, uh, like, uh, you Cody, in talking to you. First, uh, you, you've been one of the, uh, first people to reach out to us from the engineering side at the university because policy and law is so important to your work, and we'll come back to that topic after the break.

But also, you, uh, invited some of us to come out and observe, I think, back in December a, uh, a crash test that you were doing. Can, can you tell us a little bit about that test and the, all the preparation and work that goes into really these, you, you have to do. You have to do it the right, right the [00:13:00] first time because you're literally destroying the environment that you're testing.

Can you tell us a bit about what goes into that? 

[00:13:06] Cody Stolle: Certainly the project that you're referring to, there was a multi-year project trying to identify the lowest height of a concrete barrier that would still contain and redirect one of the most difficult classes of vehicles that we have to try to gather.

And that is the truck plus tank trailer combination vehicle fully loaded at a national federal standard weight. This vehicle we impact at. 80 kilometers per hour or 50 miles per hour and 15 degrees to the barrier surface that's accordance with our federal criteria. And we had to ask a lot of questions ahead of time.

How strong should the barrier be? What should the connections between that barrier and the subgrade be? What kind of a foundation does it need? Enhanced continuity. The barriers themselves will expand and contract. Because of thermal behaviors, how do we accommodate the movement and transition of the barrier under thermal loads and what is the minimum height we can still have that will contain that vehicle to prevent it from rolling over the [00:14:00] top of that barrier system?

So this project started with an initially an investigation of vehicle design. And vehicle loads moved into simulation of the tractor and the trailer itself to make sure their behaviors were realistic, investigating the impact loads, calibrating against existing data, and then constructing the system and performing the test.

[00:14:20] Gus Herwitz: We are talking with Cody Stolle here at the University of Nebraska from the, uh, mechanical Materials engineering Department, from the College of Engineering and also the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility. We will take a brief break and when we come back, we are going to turn to the intersection of these really challenging, uh, real world physical systems that Cody, uh, helps to study and design and the role that law and policy plays in how they need to be designed.

See you in a few moments.

[00:14:58] Lysandra Marquez: Hi listeners. Thank [00:15:00] you for tuning in. Interested in keeping up with the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center. Follow us at UNL underscore NGTC on Twitter, where we share the latest news and opportunities for faculty, students, and researchers. You can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter at NGTC.unl.edu/mailing-list and now back to this episode of Tech Refactored.

[00:15:45] Gus Herwitz: And we are back talking with Cody Stolle about roadside safety. And, uh, Cody, I I want to turn now to some of the research that you've been doing recently on connected and automated vehicles and the, the challenges that [00:16:00] these pose from both a, uh, engineering perspective, but also a, uh, law and policy perspective.

Can, can you, uh, just start by telling us what we're talking about when we're talking about. And automated vehicles are, are these Teslas or is this something else? 

[00:16:16] Cody Stolle: Connected and automated vehicles do refer to two different classes of vehicles, which are often very overlapping. The connected side of it means that the vehicle has an engagement with either other vehicles around it or the infrastructure in which the vehicle is using.

So it could be roadside units that are talking with the vehicle and saying, Here's where your position is, here's where you're currently traveling in space, or here's the road geometry, Uh, can also. Connection between consecutive vehicles that say, I'm traveling at this speed, Okay, I'm about to hit the brakes, or I'm changing lanes, and it allows these vehicles to talk to each other.

The secondary side of it is vehicle automation, which is the ability for the vehicle to make decisions independent of the driver's input. We have some lower [00:17:00] level automation approaches, such as adaptive cruise control, all. The functions are working is detecting how far is the vehicle ahead from the vehicle that you're in, and making changes to speed or adjusting the brakes in order to prevent or at least mitigate a potential crash if the vehicle up ahead of you abruptly starts to break.

You have other types of technologies like uh, blind spot warning and lane keeping assist, which are trying to detect if there's other vehicles that you can't see, as well as trying. Minimally steer you to keep you inside of the bounds of the lane if it can see those lanes. The future, the horizon of these two vehicles is a fully automated vehicle fleet.

At least that's the aspiration right now. There's many implementation hurdles to get there, um, but at the moment the connected and automated parts are merging and synthesizing together in order to form, uh, a unified approach for vehicles that can both talk to each. And to the infrastructure and observe the [00:18:00] infrastructure to complete guidance without the driver's input.

[00:18:04] Gus Herwitz: So, we'll, we'll turn in a moment to the, the policy side of this discussion, but just from a purely engineering perspective, what are some of the, the safety challenges that these vehicles, uh, present? 

[00:18:18] Cody Stolle: Many of the safety challenges have to do with what is a literal multi-scale time problem. Decisions made by drivers can be made in tenths of a second, whereas the sample rate for data can be anywhere between thousands of hertz or single hurts, but you have real position and interaction problems between these vehicles.

The faster you run rate sensors, the higher your computational needs. There are computational. Downs, which means you need redundant systems. If you just use Lidar to detect vehicle proximity, and if you have something where lidar is either scattered or it's in a high cross RF environment, you may miss entirely that something is in in front of you.[00:19:00] 

We, we've seen instances in which vehicles that are equipped with lane crossing and other smart and connected technologies don't see vehicles at perpendicular intersections that sudden. Pull out in front until it's too late. Or in one case, NTSB investigated a crash in which a vehicle didn't observe the broad side of a tractor, a trailer combination vehicle as it was making a turn, and the vehicle proceeded right underneath it as though it wasn't even there, uh, because nothing was located in the space of the vehicle sensors, because the structure was all at the driver's elevated torso location.

So the challenge of engineering design is it may not be. Feasible in the short term to identify every possible outcome and accommodate every one of those, whereas human drivers are able to accommodate things we don't even realize that we do at the moment. So the engineering challenge is, is manyfold, it's what sensors do you use?

How fast do you need to record them? How do you store that data? How do you accommodate and [00:20:00] estimate situations that you don't even know you need to know yet? 

[00:20:04] Gus Herwitz: Uh, I, I love that point. Naturally would think faster decisions are better decisions, but it turns out that if you're able to make your decisions too quickly, that can lead to, I guess I'll call it a computational indecision, where there there might be kind of an uncertain element, and you'll be fine if it's either A or B.

But if you can keep changing between A and B and A and B a thousand times a second, that could lead to a really unstable vehicle and create a situation. Final decision actually is the wrong one. Now you need to turn left or right. You can't go straight. And if you're kind of going left, right, left, right, left right, a thousand times a second, you reach a point where you can't go either.

That's really counterintuitive safety scenario that I, I think demonstrates just in really, uh, I think tangible terms, the complexity of the challenges here Are we seeing today, roadside. Sensors [00:21:00] or information being broadcast to cars, things like speed limits being transmitted to vehicles. 

[00:21:07] Cody Stolle: There is a lot of research undergoing right now at Vehicle Connectivity Solutions for exactly what you're describing.

Uh, RSU or roadside units are being primarily tried in test beds right now, but they do communicate things like upcoming signal changes and traffic lights, variable speed limits, where they're being used, and even some road data and physician data of the vehicle itself. 

[00:21:30] Gus Herwitz: So let's, uh, turn to the law and policy side of things you had mentioned, uh, to me in an earlier discussion.

What one of the big challenges here is just figuring out who's responsible for making decisions and potential liability. If I'm driving an ice, Steer my car off the side of the road. Well, we know that I did that, but if, uh, my car gets sensor data that is invalid from someone, some other vehicle, and as a result, my car makes a decision and I [00:22:00] don't override that, who the, the liability who's, uh, at fault question gets to be really complicated.

Really. Uh, fast. H how do these issues play into the research that you're. 

[00:22:11] Cody Stolle: They're actually part of the central aspect because most of the research that I'm working with is with the State Departments of Transportation. The ownership issue becomes particularly important with the, the burden or duty of maintenance, the cost and longstanding, uh, contributions that they have to do as well as what.

Our vehicles expecting from the states right now, there is a standard of duty of maintaining the road to be reasonable, and that qualification has to be applied a little bit subjectively and leniently, but the roads have to be traversable. They are maintained to be clear. The, there have to be proper signage and all of these things are factors which play into both federal reimbursement for different transportation projects, safety ratings, and and other features that are similar to that.

But there is an uncertain burden right now [00:23:00] for what is mandated for vehicles that are automated. Or connected. And how are these VE technologies going to be supported into the future? What is the ownership model for them? Is it third party ownership? Are the dots going to be owning them? And if so, how are they going to accommodate a whole new cost structure as well?

If the DTS are responsible for the connectivity equipment, and if any of that connectivity equipment fails, are they then therefore responsible for any crashes that would trans transpire? In that interim period, and that isn't really very clear at the 

[00:23:33] Gus Herwitz: moment, you've received some support from the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center to, uh, look into and do a, a literature review on the relevant, uh, laws and policies, uh, in this area.

Uh, can you tell us a bit about that work and what you've learned? 

[00:23:51] Cody Stolle: Certainly we've looked both at the technologies that are being implemented and tested as well to provide a background on what vehicle features might [00:24:00] have the most interest to the State Departments of Transportation, as they are the principle stakeholders of the assets themselves, the roadways, and whatever the vehicles are using to get around.

And therefore we looked at the background for the features. Um, We engage with the state departments of transportation to see what types of features they felt were the priority for their potential investments and how those priorities might affect their funding structures and their duties of ownership.

Then thereafter, many state departments of transportation want to participate in this, but they don't want to accumulate additional financial responsibility or burden of ownership and management without any play in or buy in from private companies and consumers as well. So if we can work together, Collaborative environment, then this will facilitate a better growth of this system.

But right now there isn't that collaboration between all three entities and users of these road 

[00:24:53] Gus Herwitz: systems. Any sense on what we can or need to do in order to facilitate that sort [00:25:00] of collaboration? 

[00:25:01] Cody Stolle: One of the outstanding needs identified by many of the states is commonality for the law. Individual states will have their own guidance for responsibilities, including the responsibilities and ownership of the dots, individual drivers and manufacturers for day to day exchange for discussion, et cetera.

But there are other states that have little to no guidance whatsoever. When you have one vehicle that's traveling across state lines, a discontinuity in the laws affecting the vehicle, ownership and responsibility could have very significant consequences. It's amplified even further when you're looking at commercial motor vehicles and what's their responsibilities and duties, and so the.

Primary role that many states have identified is a consistent set of laws that transcend state boundaries, that provide a meaningful guidance framework so that little minor adjustments might occur between states, but the overall understanding of the [00:26:00] bur the duties and responsibilities of the asset owners.

A second major contribution to what the state departments of transportation need is the ability for information to make it out. Right now, there's a lot of development in new features, new technology, growth, adaptation, optimization, but it doesn't reach the kind of audience that it needs to in order to be implemented.

And if states are implementing something that is a generation or two behind. Because that's the information that they had available, only to find out that there is significant advancements that have been made in the last year or two. This creates a, a synthesis problem. How do we make sure that our equipment is meeting the same standard of of execution?

[00:26:42] Gus Herwitz: So I, I want to, uh, ask, since, as I noted, um, previously, you're an engineer who has reached out regularly and has shown real interest in understanding the, the law and policy aspects of your work. Um, Do, do you have any reflections or thoughts [00:27:00] on the, the relationship between the disciplines and ways that the disciplines could or should work better to facilitate these outcomes or just lessons for folks, either on the law or engineering side on how to construct these relationships?

[00:27:17] Cody Stolle: And it's an excellent question, and if I can speak very idyllically here, the law is a great opportunity and lawsuits are a great opportunity to make important changes to move people outside of the boundaries of, of fear and into an opportunity to make meaningful advancements and safety and, and benefits for all.

And then it is a significant fear. Liability can create a negative influence. It can actually adversely affect due to the risk of safety implementation if a new feature is going to be implemented. And then there isn't sufficient protection to say, I just wanted to investigate how this feature was being implemented or how.

Useful and [00:28:00] meaningful. It is. If you use a case study like that, it's in there for a year, two years, and you see that crashes increase. This is a significant fear and it's a burden for implementation of new technologies, and it decreases the innovation aspect of a lot of new technologies too. 

[00:28:16] Gus Herwitz: That's a, a really insightful answer and something that in, in my own teaching, I try and really get my students to understand we we're scared to death of liability and we do everything we can to avoid liability, which means we're living in uncertainty, especially with new technologies and uncertain legal standards.

The law develops through litigation and people bringing suits. And in fact, the, the longer it takes for us to get that certainty, the greater the liability becomes. So the more fear there is about trying new things. Um, so at some point, uh, we, we just need to start saying, Okay, these are the rules and we need to start figuring them out.

And, and also there's. Point [00:29:00] that you made in there that, uh, I, I think anyone who's driven across straight state lines can appreciate, um, states have different laws and we, we have federal regulations and we have state level regulations. And as you know, you drive across a state line and suddenly you go from perfectly smooth paved roads to potholes everywhere or, or the flip side, uh, of that.

And it, it's binary. Uh, you cross that state, that invisible state line, and. Unless your GPS is automatically updated really quickly and all the rules that the vehicle is programmed to a follow have changed, you're going to be operating under the wrong rules. And if you're just a normal human driver, that's probably not a big thing.

But if. Some important control function needs to get changed between states and that doesn't happen. That could have catastrophic, uh, uh, consequences. So that, that's a, a really interesting interplay between the engineering rules [00:30:00] and the legal rules and how they change how are. We seeing things. And how do you anticipate things to develop differently between commercial and consumer vehicles?

Commercial vehicles 

[00:30:11] Cody Stolle: are likely going to be leading the way, um, right now because every automotive company that sells a semi-automated vehicle implements into the manuals that personal ownership and responsibility. The driver must be ready to resume control of the vehicle at any. Without any notice, um, that is beyond the realm of what is due diligence.

Commercial motor vehicles will follow in close order with a single human driver that may be piloting multiple vehicles behind them in a, in a shadow fleet. This scenario creates a whole different. Type of a vehicle, autotomy autonomy, uh, in which that vehicle is able to make the decisions it needs to simply because a human is in the front guiding all of the trailing vehicles behind it.

And as long as that synthesis and that symbiosis continues with those vehicles able to follow in [00:31:00] close excessive order, you will see commercial motor vehicles advancing the state. Automation and connectivity both simultaneously. What's more, we can use artificial intelligence to help learn what did real drivers do based on the actions of the shadow vehicles always observing.

And by that use. Better models and have better wes of training our systems to eventually implement into passenger vehicles too. Right now, the information barrier is pretty substantial for passenger vehicles, when and where they're going to be used, how they're driven, and how do they can react, uh, to the unknowns.

[00:31:39] Gus Herwitz: So silly question, but I have to ask. I think I know the answer. Do you have a favorite episode of The Simpsons? 

[00:31:46] Cody Stolle: I do not have a favorite, No. . Okay. I was, 

[00:31:49] Gus Herwitz: I was hoping that you were gonna say yes, of course. The one where a homer becomes a, uh, a truck driver driving a self-driving truck, but ala the Simpsons, not what it used to be.[00:32:00] 

Are, are you, uh, an optimist about the future of self-driving vehicles? 

[00:32:07] Cody Stolle: I am. I think that there are a lot of possibilities and I think that the biggest and most important contribution we can make in this field moving forward is going to be learning more about driver scenarios and exploring the scenarios we haven't considered to be the traditional avenues like unpaved roads, rural roads, and areas where there are low service. If we can figure out those problems, I think we're going to make a substantial leap into the future. 

[00:32:34] Gus Herwitz: Any last thoughts as we wrap up? 

[00:32:39] Cody Stolle: Everybody drives safe. This is, otherwise you're gonna keep me in job security for the rest of my life. I'd love to put myself out of a job. 

[00:32:47] Gus Herwitz: I can, uh, sympathize with that.

And, uh, I thank you really for the, the work that you're doing. It, it's both. It has the advantage of both being intellectually engaging and also really incredibly [00:33:00] important. We've been speaking with Cody Staley from the Department of Mechanical Materials Engineering here at the University of Nebraska.

Cody really enjoyed this conversation. Uh, thank you for joining us, and thank you as always to our listeners for joining us on this episode of Tech Refactored. If you want to learn more about what we're doing here at the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center, Or you'd like to submit an idea for a future episode, you can go to our website@ngtc.unl.edu, or you can follow us on Twitter at UNL underscore NGTC.

If you enjoyed this show, please don't forget to leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Please don't do that while you're driving. Our show is produced by Elsbeth Magilton and Lysandra Marquez, and Colin McCarthy created and recorded our theme. This podcast is part of the Menard Governance and Technology Programming Series.

Until next time, drive safe.[00:34:00]