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.

The University of Iowa’s National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) received a $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to study the safe deployment of automated vehicles in rural areas.

The University of Iowa will put to use a $7.03 million grant it received from the U.S. Department of Transportation to test how automated driving systems safely can be introduced on the state’s roads.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation announced nearly $60 million in federal grant funding to eight projects in seven states to test the safe integration of automated driving systems (ADS) on our nation’s roadways.

The Iowa Senate has approved legislation that would govern how autonomous vehicles operate in the state.

This Gazette article explores the future of automated vehicles in rural states like Iowa and gives a brief overview of the new research being done in Iowa by researchers at the Driving Safety Research Institute.