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With the advent of autonomous vehicles, the human driver’s attention will slowly be relinquished from the driving task. It will allow drivers to participate in more non-driving related activities, such as engaging with information and entertainment systems. However, the automated driving system would need to notify the driver of upcoming points-of-interest on the road when the driver’s attention is focused on their screen rather than on the road or driving display. In this paper, we investigated whether providing directional alerts for an upcoming point-of-interest (POI) in or around the user’s active screen can augment their ability in relocating their visual attention to the POI on the road when traveling in a vehicle with Conditional Driving Automation. A user study (N = 15) was conducted to compare solutions for alerts that presented themselves in the participants’ central and peripheral field of view.

Trail-Braking (TB) is a common cornering technique used in rally racing to negotiate tight corners at (moderately) high speeds. In a previous paper by the authors it has been shown that TB can be generated as the solution to the minimum-time cornering problem, subject to fixed final positioning of the vehicle after the corner. A TB maneuver can then be computed by solving a non-linear programming (NLP). In this work we formulate an optimization problem by relaxing the final positioning of the vehicle with respect to the width of the road in order to study the optimality of late-apex trajectories typically followed by rally drivers. We test the results on a variety of corners. The optimal control inputs are approximated by simple piecewise linear input profiles defined by a small number of parameters. It is shown that the proposed input parameterization can generate close to optimal TB along the various corner geometries.

This paper describes a machine to quarry construction material, sinter walls, and assemble future space station modules. In prior work, we explored the solar energy requirements to build a 50m diameter, 50m high, cylindrical module out of pulverized rock from a Near-Earth Object, using tailored radio wave fields. In this paper, we describe the issues in the conceptual design of the robotic construction machines. The 4-legged Rock breaker is designed to fit the payload bay of a modern heavy-lift booster to reach Low Earth Orbit, and primary solar-sail propulsion for most of its journey. It uses beamed microwave energy for its cutting operations. Rotating, telescoping arms use integrated laser/plasma jet cutter arrays to dig trenches in spiral patterns which will form blocks of material. Cut blocks are sent into a toroidal cloud of material for use in the force field tailoring for automatic module formation.

System effectiveness has become the prime metric for the evaluation of military aircraft. As such, it is the designer's goal to maximize system effectiveness. Industry documents indicate that all future military aircraft will incorporate signature reduction as an attempt to improve system effectiveness. Today's operating environments demand low observable aircraft which are able to reliably eliminate valuable, time critical targets. Thus, it is desirable to be able to evaluate the signatures of a vehicle, as well as the influence of signatures on the systems effectiveness of a vehicle. Previous studies have shown that shaping of the vehicle is one of the most important contributors to radar cross section and must be considered from the very beginning of the design process. This research strives to meet these needs by developing a parametric geometry radar cross section prediction tool.

Tools are now publicly available that can potentially help a company assess the impact of its water use and risks in relation to their global operations and supply chains. In this paper we describe a comparative analysis of two publicly available tools, specifically the WWF/DEG Water Risk Filter and the WBCSD Global Water Tool that are used to measure the water impact and risk indicators for industrial facilities. By analyzing the risk assessments calculated by these tools for different scenarios that include varying facilities from different industries, one can better gauge the similarities and differences between these water strategy tools. Several scenarios were evaluated using the water tools, and the results are compared and contrasted. As will be shown, the results can vary significantly.

In-vehicle infotainment (IVI) platforms are getting increasingly connected. Besides OEM apps and services, the next generation of IVI platforms are expected to offer integration of third-party apps. Under this anticipated business model, vehicular sensor and event data can be collected and shared with selected third-party apps. To accommodate this trend, Google has been pushing towards standardization among proprietary IVI operating systems with their Android Automotive platform which runs natively on the vehicle’s IVI platform. Unlike Android Auto’s limited functionality of display-projecting certain smartphone apps to the IVI screen, Android Automotive will have access to the in-vehicle network (IVN), and will be able to read and share various vehicular sensor data with third-party apps. This increased connectivity opens new business opportunities for both the car manufacturer as well as third-party businesses, but also introduces a new attack surface on the vehicle.