School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, & Health Systems

Hanh Dieu Do-Phung

College of Engineering

Computer Engineering

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Sriram Balasubramanian Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Valentina Graci, Thomas Seacrist Co-Mentors

Designing the testing environment for a Startling Warning System in an Autonomous driving scenario

Nowadays, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in young adults [1]. With autonomous driving becoming a reality, drivers may become involved in secondary tasks. Therefore reaction times during crash avoidance maneuvers may be increased if the vehicle requests manual control. The purpose of this research is to develop a novel auditory warning system that uses a starling sound to decrease drivers’ reaction times during evasive swerving. A driving environment consisting of a custom made driving compartment within an oscillating sled simulating evasive swerving will be designed and built. A startling sound, consisting of a 1000 Hz sine wave, will be tested at 105 dB, 120 dB and 124 dB, and will occur in a 40 ms duration. Because the startling sound will need to occur 250 ms before the sled oscillation (Mang et al 2012), a relay controller will be programmed to time the sound accurately with the sled motion. The efficacy of the starling sound will be tested by collecting kinematic and kinetic data on human subjects.

[1] CDC, “Teen Drivers: Gets the Facts,” pp. 3 – 4, 2018