| NSF Org: |
ECCS Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | March 29, 2022 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 25, 2023 |
| Award Number: | 2138446 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Richard Nash
rnash@nsf.gov (703)292-5394 ECCS Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems ENG Directorate for Engineering |
| Start Date: | August 1, 2022 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2024 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $183,302.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $204,982.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2023 = $21,680.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
261 FOREST DR STE 3000 STATESBORO GA US 30458-6724 (912)478-5465 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
261 Forest Drive Statesboro GA US 30458-8005 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
ERI-Eng. Research Initiation, EPCN-Energy-Power-Ctrl-Netwrks |
| Primary Program Source: |
010V2122DB R&RA ARP Act DEFC V |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
Connected and autonomous vehicles are no longer a futuristic dream from science fiction, but they are already emerging as a reality in our everyday life. Throughout the short yet rich history of evolution of connected and autonomous vehicles, a salient paradigm is to accomplish the efficient data exchange among vehicles, which has made vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications a household name. Despite the rapid evolution of V2X communications, successful exchange of safety messages still remains an ambitious task mainly due to the high mobility and dynamicity of vehicular systems. The bigger problem is that as more vehicles are connected and autonomously driven, the number of exchanged messages will explode, which will likely deteriorate the chance of successful message delivery. As an effort to address this problem, we propose to carefully define the priority of the transmitted information and prioritize channel access among vehicles accordingly. Predicated on the significance, this project will form a significant step towards the overarching vision of persistent and reliable operations of connected and autonomous vehicles in real-world conditions. The proposed research activities will go hand-in-hand with educational and outreach activities to train the next generation of engineers in multidisciplinary thinking. Specifically, the outcomes of this project (i.e., a testbed and further academic findings) will act as the research team's main resource in modernization of the courses, promotion of underrepresented minorities recruitment, community outreach, undergraduate research, and further collaboration with local/national stakeholders on resolving practical issues in deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles.
The key intellectual contributions of this project lie in the following innovative aspects: 1) Quantification of a "metric" capturing the holistic impacts of multiple risk-determining features in concert; 2) Formulation of the metric computation mechanism as a "combinatorial optimization" problem with a time constraint; 3) Proposition of a practical methodology of "solving" the proposed combinatorial optimization problem; 4) Development of a "testbed" implementing the proposed risk-based prioritization among safety message types defined in current V2X use cases. We will draw from these techniques to prove theoretical performance bounds for the proposed V2X communications framework and understand its practical performance limits. Consequently, the mathematical techniques and empirical observations made by this project will inform and enable future research in a broad class of problems on connected and autonomous vehicles and intelligent transportation systems.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) project investigated a formal method of "efficient data exchange among vehicles," as a cornerstone for the realization of connected and automated vehicles. While vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications have advanced significantly, ensuring the reliable transmission of safety-critical messages remains a challenge due to the inherent mobility and dynamic nature of vehicular systems. Furthermore, as increasingly more connected and autonomous vehicles are deployed, the surge in message volume poses a risk of overwhelming the communication system, potentially compromising delivery performance. As such, it becomes a crucial problem to establish a robust framework for prioritizing transmitted information, ensuring vehicles receive timely access to critical data. This leads to a key research question: "How should priority be defined?" The proposed solution in this award leverages the "driving risk" assessed at individual vehicles, where vehicles facing higher risk levels are assigned greater priority to communicate their status urgently, thereby contributing to overall road safety.
The key intellectual merit of this research is two-fold: the development of (i) a mechanism prioritizing V2X traffic according to the driver's distraction level and (ii) a driving simulator platform quantifying the driver's distraction. Specifically, we propose that dangerously driven vehicles take a higher priority in multiple access for V2X communications. To wit, we prioritize the multiple access according to the driver's risky behavior while driving. As a method to evaluate the proposed mechanism, we build a driving simulator that aims at capturing the driver's distraction. The level of distraction will be measured in terms of (i) eye movement and (ii) motion. We build a number of different traffic scenarios including suburban highway, urban junction, etc. This research features an open source-based, thus low-cost, implementation of the driving simulator. Then, we apply the quantified driver's distraction level to the optimization of V2X multiple access.
As outcomes of the project, we were able to publish 6 papers at various prestigious conference venues, in almost all of which a student advisee was the first author. We were also able to expand the theoretical findings of this project to further proposals submitted to several different programs at the National Science Foundation, viz., NSF 24-549: Next Era of Wireless and Spectrum, etc.
The virtual reality-empowered driving simulator that was built via this project is located at the New-Era Wireless (NEW) Laboratory that PI Kim directs within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the College of Engineering and Computing. This capability is expected to expand the department's and college's research depth in synergy with the existing infrastructure. The simulator is expected to enable faculty, fellow researchers, and industry stakeholders to perform experiments across various areas. In fact, the PI has been very actively involved in outreach activities. He held at least one open lab event as part of the university’s recruitment activities, to which a wide diversity of young students was invited: viz., freshmen, middle- and high-school students, and their families.
Last Modified: 01/01/2025
Modified by: Seungmo Kim
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