M. S. Civil Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, (Being Pursued)
B. A. Physics, College of the Holy Cross, (2004)
Current Research Projects:
Dynamic Vehicle Modeling (DVM) for the next generation of traffic simulation
Developing a Dynamic Vehicle Model (DVM) for next generation traffic simulation The dynamic vehicle model being proposed will allow more details of the vehicle to be included in traffic simulation. A vehicle’s steering, accelerating and braking abilities are very important in determining how well it interacts within a transportation system. These abilities vary tremendously from one vehicle to the next, in addition to the aforementioned factors that affect performance in a transportation system. And as such, these three capabilities will be the base of our dynamic vehicle model.
The dynamic vehicle model will employ matrix mathematics to represent a particular vehicle and its steering, accelerating and braking capabilities. This model will exploit the properties of matrices and other mathematical tools and identities. This method was chosen because it permits the representation of all the necessary degrees of freedom to model a vehicle and its parameters in a compact fashion.
Developing an experiment for the testing of the DVM
An experiment is currently being developed to test our DVM. Test experiment will involve detailed analysis of the driving task. Using a specified route, driver input and vehicle output will be measured and monitored.
Driver Input
Measuring Device
Vehicle Output
Steering wheel movement
Sensors for steering angles
Front wheel movement
Steeping on the accelerator
Accelerometer
Acceleration of vehicle
Steeping on the brake
Accelerometer
Deceleration of the vehicle
After conducting the experiment similar driver input will in placed in the DVM aiming to get similar output from the experiment.
