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3. Autonomous & Connected Vehicles
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# Autonomous & Connected Vehicles
### Group Leader: Dr. Carl Crane
Carl D. Crane is a professor in the  and Director of the  (CIMAR) at the University of Florida. Dr. Crane has been involved in research in the areas of spatial mechanisms, tensegrity systems, robotics, and autonomous navigation for over twenty five years. Current activities include the development and implementation of system architectures for autonomous ground vehicle navigation and the design and implementation of passive parallel mechanisms to be used for force control applications. Dr. Crane was team leader of the University of Florida’s 2004 and 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge autonomous vehicle development efforts and for the University of Florida’s 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge project team.
### Information
Connected vehicles (CV) use various communication technologies to exchange information with other cars on the road (vehicle-to-vehicle [V2V]), roadside infrastructure (vehicle-to-infrastructure [V2I]), and the “Cloud” [V2C]. Autonomous, or “self-driving” vehicles are defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as “those in which operation of the vehicle occurs without direct driver input to control the steering, acceleration, and braking and are designed so that the driver is not expected to constantly monitor the roadway while operating in self-driving mode.”  Connected and/or Autonomous Vehicle (CV/AV/CAV) technologies are among the most attractive automotive technologies, and they  continue to evolve and rapidly develop new capabilities.  It is widely believed that CV/AV/CAV have great potential to not only improve vehicle safety, but also to improve traffic mobility, efficiency and sustainability. The UFTI is  a leader in this area, both with respect to technology development as well as traffic management. It has competed nationally in events such as the DARPA Urban Challenge and is still actively conducting related research.
Related on-going research projects include but are not limited to the following list.
### Projects
| Title | Contracting Agency | Principal Investigator | View Report/Summary |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NCHRP 3-92 Production of the Highway Capacity Manual 2010 | Kittelson and Associates, Inc./ National Cooperative Highway Research Program | Kenneth G. Courage | View Report |
| NCHRP 3-60A Validation and Enhancement of the Highway Capacity Manual's Interchange Ramp Terminal Methodology | National Cooperative Highway Research Program | Lily Elefteriadou | View Report |
| NCHRP 3-85: Guidance on the Use of Simulation and Other Models in the Highway Capacity Analyses | National Cooperative Highway Research Program | Kenneth G. Courage | View Report |
| NCHRP 3-87 Proactive Ramp Management Under the Threat of Freeway Flow Breakdown | National Cooperative Highway Research Program | Lily Elefteriadou | View Report |
| Pareto-Improving Road Pricing Schemes for Sustainable Mobility | National Science Foundation (NSF) | Yafeng Yin | View Report |
| Transforming a City's Transportation Infrastructure through an Embedded Pervasive Communication Network | National Science Foundation (NSF) | Shigang Chen (PI), Yafeng Yin (Co-PI) | View Report |
| Travel Time Reliability | National Science Foundation (NSF) | Lily Elefteriadou | View Report |
| Analyzing the Effectiveness of Enhanced Penalty Zones and Police Enforcement as Freeway Speed-Control Measures | Southeastern Transportation Center, University of Tennessee | Siva Srinivasan | View Report |
| Analysis of Crashes in Work Zone Queues | Southeastern Transportation Center, University of Tennessee | Siva Srinivasan, Scott Washburn | View Report |
| Activity-Based Travel Demand Modeling for Metropolitan Areas in Texas | USDOT, FHWA, TDOT | Siva Srinivasan | View Report |
| Conversion of Volunteer-Collected GPS Diary Data | USDOT, TDOT | Siva Srinivasan | View Report |
| Facility Performance Model Enhancements for Multimodal Systems Planning (Part I) | N/A | Scott Washburn, Kenneth G. Courage | View Report |
| Multimodal Quality of Service, Part I: Truck Level of Service | N/A | Scott Washburn | View Report |
More projects can be found on the TRID database at <
### Participants
 Lili Du
Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering
(352) 294-7805work
lilidu@ufl.eduINTERNET
 Lily Elefteriadou
Director, UFTI & Barbara Goldsby Professor, Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering
(352) 294-7802work
elefter@ce.ufl.eduINTERNET
 Siva Srinivasan
Associate Director, UFTI; Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering
(352) 294-7807work
siva@ce.ufl.eduINTERNET
 Yu Wang
Autonomous and Connected Vehicle Group Lead
(217) 979-6365home
yuwang1@ufl.eduINTERNET
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3. Materials and Infrastructure
# Materials and Infrastructure
### Group Leader: Dr. Jennifer Bridge
Dr. Jennifer Bridge is an associate professor in the . Dr. Bridge’s research interests are in the area of structural dynamics with an emphasis on structural health monitoring, wireless smart sensor networks, wind hazard mitigation, and full-scale bridge assessment. She strives to improve infrastructure monitoring strategies by utilizing a multidisciplinary approach to the development and application of novel sensors and sensing systems.
### Mission
To conduct research, education and service activities in the field of infrastructures and related materials. As well as promote sustainable practices in infrastructure engineering, enhance understanding of distress mechanisms and failure modes, develop testing and conditioning procedures to improve material characterization, and develop design approaches for pavement systems and foundations that optimize performance.
| Project Title | PI | Funding Source | Status |
|  | Dr. Jennifer Bridge | National Science Foundation | Active |
|  | Dr. Jennifer Bridge | Florida Department of Transportation | Completed 2018 |
|  | Dr. Jennifer Bridge | Florida Department of Transportation | Active |
|  | Dr. Jennifer Bridge | Feld Entertainment | Completed 2019 |
|  | Dr. Aaron Costin | National Science Foundation | Active |
|  | Dr. Aaron Costin | Transportation Pooled Fund Program | Active |
|  | Dr. Eric Jing Du | National Institute of Standards and Technology | Active |
|  | Dr. Eric Jing Du | National Science Foundation | Active |
|  | Dr. Chris Ferraro | Transportation Research Board/NCHRP 18-19 | Active |
|  | Dr. Chris Ferraro | Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy U.S. Department of Energy | Active |
| Predictive, Model-Assisted Guided Wave Structural Health Monitoring | Dr. Joel B. Harley | Air Force Office of Scientific Research | Active |
|  | Dr. Kyle Riding | Florida Department of Transportation Research Center | Active |
| Phase II: Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC) Use in Florida Structural Applications | Dr. Kyle Riding | Florida Department of Transportation Research Center | Active |
| Track Structure Modification to Reduce Track Pressure and Settlement at Transition Areas | Dr. Kyle Riding | US Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration | Active |
|  | Dr. Reynaldo Roque | Florida Department of Transportation | Completed 2020 |
| In-service Assessment of Road Sinkholes with 2D Ambient Noise Tomography | Dr. Khiem Tran | Florida Department of Transportation | Active |
|  | Dr. Reynaldo Roque & Dr. Jian Zou | Florida Department of Transportation | Active |
|  | Dr. Khiem Tran | National Science Foundation | Active |
 Jim Baciak
Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
(352) 273-2131home
jebaciak@ufl.eduINTERNET
 Jennifer Bridge
(352) 294-7793work
jennifer.bridge@essie.ufl.eduINTERNET
 Aaron Costin
Assistant Professor, M. E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management
(352) 273-2121home
aaron.costin@ufl.eduINTERNET
 Eric Jing Du
(352) 294-6619home
eric.du@essie.ufl.eduINTERNET
 Christopher Ferraro
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering
(352) 392-0959home
ferraro@ce.ufl.eduINTERNET
 Joel Harley
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
(352) 392-2692home
joel.harley@ufl.eduINTERNET
 Dennis Hiltunen
Professor, Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering
(352) 294-7767home
dhilt@ce.ufl.eduINTERNET
 Kyle Riding
Associate Professor, Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering
(352) 294-1628home
kyle.riding@essie.ufl.eduINTERNET
 Khiem Tran
352-294-3369home
khiem.tran@essie.ufl.eduINTERNET
 Jian Zou
Research Assistant Scientist, Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering
(352) 294-7799home
zouj@ce.ufl.eduINTERNET
### Facilities
#### Weil Hall Structures and Materials Laboratory
 (affectionately known as “The Pit”) is a fully equipped civil engineering materials preparation and testing laboratory. The Laboratory specializes in concrete design and testing as well as small to large scale structural experiment testing.
#### Powell Family Structures & Materials Laboratory
 is located on the East Campus of the University of Florida and is part of the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering. The facility consists of a 6000 square foot lab space with a 30-foot high ceiling and 4-foot thick concrete strong floor, a 2000 square foot machine shop with a 12-foot ceiling, a 5000 square foot general lab space with a 16-foot high ceiling, a 120 linear foot wind tunnel, a 220 square foot instrumentation room, and several offices & storage rooms. Research in this facility is primarily directed at earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, and blast/impact in the context of structural damage mitigation and human intervention.