UCSD researchers working to make highways safer

By: RUTH MARVIN WEBSTER - For the North County Times | Saturday, April 30, 2005 10:14 PM PDT ∞

In today's fast-paced world, it's not easy for drivers to keep their attention on the road, but technology being developed at UC San Diego's Jacob School of Engineering may change that.

Picture a steering wheel that vibrates if you become drowsy and drift from your lane. A cell phone that reports on the driver's state of mind. A camera that determines the posture of a passenger in the front seat. A system that tells an airbag whether to deploy.

These are a few of the projects under way at the Laboratory for Intelligent and Safe Automobiles at UCSD where Mohan Trivedi, professor of mechanical and computer engineering, and his team are looking at ways to reduce driver distractions which, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, accounted for 30 percent ---- or about 10,000 deaths ---- on the nation's highways last year.ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ

All the latest car models from Detroit and abroad are loaded with sensors ---- ones to measure engine performance, how close an object is to the rear bumper, or whether a car door is left ajar but lately engineers have started to investigate the use of sensors and two-way video/audio communications to monitor not only the car and the area around the car, but the driver and his state of mind.

Trivedi calls it "driving ecology".

"Lots of people drive while talking on the cell phone, fiddling with the CD changer or talking to passengers in the back seat," Trivedi said. "Maybe the driver gets to thinking about something else or gets drowsy and he is not aware that the car is drifting or there is another a car in his blind spot when he is changing lanes. If that happens, then the car can do something to bring his attention back to driving."

Trivedi, who also serves as the director of the Computer Vision and Robotics Research Laboratory, began his work in the field developing intelligent or "smart" environments, such as office space.

"Years ago, we started working on smart rooms," he said. "With the use of video-conferencing techniques, the room figures out how many people are there, who is talking and how best to photograph the person talking.

"Then Caltrans became interested in picking up events in the freeway system ---- using cameras in remote spaces so first-responders could know the nature of an accident before they arrived or informing drivers of congestion and alternate routes ahead of time."

Soon automakers like Daimler Chrysler's Mercedes division, Volkswagen and Nissan were intrigued so Trivedi and his team took to San Diego County freeways, equipping a handful of real vehicles with sensors, processing power and computer storage. They also have collected data from hundreds of test subjects who took test drives on simulator programs developed at the lab.

One project (funded by Daimler Chrysler and a UC Discovery Grant) was aimed at making it safer to talk on a cell phone while driving. In another project, (this one with funding from Volkswagen and another UC Discovery Grant) Trivedi's team set out to determine the posture of passengers in the front seat who might be harmed by a sudden deployment of an airbag. And with Nissan, the researchers were given a still bigger challenge ---- to develop assistance systems warning drivers of potential hazards without compounding the distraction.

"The challenge is really modeling human beings," said Trivedi, who notes that though the laboratory is at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering, faculty from outside departments such as psychology, electrical engineering and cognitive science are involved in the research.

"We are not asking the car to drive itself," he said. "We need to look at the broad view and understand human attention and how people multitask ---- especially while driving."

Trivedi said the technology developed by he and others has made driving safer, but he is quick to admit there is still much work to be done, particularly in light of a recent report from the World Health Organization that estimates that roughly 1.2 million people die each year on roads worldwide.Ý

"Driving a car affects your safety as well as the safety of all around you," he said. "When you get behind the wheel you are doing something which has life and death consequences. And that involves issues larger than just technology like issues of personal freedom and public education."

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