University Extends Autonomous Vehicle Collaboration With Toyota

The Transportation Active Safety Institute (TASI) at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) has extended its work with Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC) to focus on autonomous and connected vehicle technologies through the CSRC Next research effort.

IUPUI's Transportation Active Safety Institute, or TASI, has worked with Toyota's Collaborative Safety Research Center on advanced test targets for bicyclist precollision systems. Its next project will explore driving features called "road-departure detection and control." Courtesy of TASI.

CSRC Next will direct $35 million through 2021 toward research designed to support a safe transition to self-driving cars. Eight projects at six schools, including IUPUI, will explore driving features called "road-departure detection and control."

"Autonomous vehicles have no drivers, so those vehicles must be equipped with sensors that can detect a road's edge in case anything happens," said Yaobin Chen, director of TASI at IUPUI. "Then, autonomous control will take over, correct the error and put a car back in the lane on the road."

With the help of high-resolution Google imagery, the team at IUPUI has studied road edges and boundaries in all 50 states. That information will allow researchers to create and test methodologies for roadside-departure systems.

Toyota's CSRC was created in 2011 to collaborate with leading North American universities, hospitals and research institutions on projects aimed at reducing traffic casualties and sharing the results publicly.