The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) recently granted the University of Iowa National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) a $1.45 million award to further study transition of control in automated vehicles in a simulation environment.

What happens when an autonomous vehicle is not on a coastline highway, but a gravel road that it has to navigate? That is precisely what Omar Ahmad and his team at the University of Iowa are hoping to answer.

Automated vehicle route to go through Iowa City, Hills, Riverside, and Kalona starting in 2021

We hear so much about self-driving vehicles but in reality how far away are they? My guest is Dr. Dan McGehee the Director of the Dan McGehee Image Dec 2019Human Factors and Vehicle Safety Research Division at the University of Iowa National Advanced Driving Simulator in the College of Engineering. What he has to say about automated vs. autonomous vehicles may surprise you. What is really amazing is that his team works on projects that are 20 years ahead of production.

Most roads in the U.S. are in rural areas, and the University of Iowa’s National Advanced Driving Simulator is working to make them safer and prepare them for a future with driverless vehicles.

The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded nearly $60 million in grant funding to eight projects in seven states to test the safe integration of automated driving systems (ADS). The grants seek to gather safety data to inform rulemaking and foster collaboration amongst state and local government and private partners.