Laboratories

VTTI's laboratories are housed in two buildings totaling more than 52,000 sq. ft. These laboratories assist reseachers and technicians with driver interface development, eyeglance data reduction, lighting research, accident analysis, pavement research, traffic simulation, electronics fabrication, and data acquisition.

Researchers use an electronics laboratory to customize transportation hardware and software in the effort to reliably collect large amounts of data.

Transportation safety research conducted at VTTI frequently requires that test vehicles be equipped with complex data acquisition systems (DAS) to collect and store large quantities of detailed information that is available in a driving environment. Due to differences in vehicle makes and models, network integration systems within the DAS need to be customized for each type of vehicle. Researchers in the Center for Technology Development use the electronics labs to build and customize DAS equipment for a variety of cars, SUV's, heavy trucks, school buses, transit buses, and motorcycles.

Data Acquisition Systems

For many years, VTTI's Center for Technology Development (CTD) has designed and refined data acquisition technologies for large-scale studies. The Advanced Development, Data Acquisition, and Mechanical Groups within VTTI's CTD design, develop, and build the data acquisition hardware, electronics, and software required to reliably and securely collect research data required by research staff. These state-of-the-art vehicle- and infrastructure-based data acquisition systems (DASs) are developed, built, and tested at VTTI's facility located in Blacksburg, VA.

The general design characteristics for the DAS include the following:

• Compatible with the vehicle (e.g., power obtained from vehicle battery, data from in-vehicle network)
• Unobtrusive and non-invasive:
• • Non distracting
  • Does not limit driver visibility
  • No permanent modifications to the vehicle
  • Minimal space requirement (e.g., for data storage unit)
  • Automatic start-up, shut-down, and continuous operation
  • No subject tasks required for operation or data downloading
• Reliable performance in the often harsh operational environment. Minimal data loss and automatic detection of failures
• Continuous multi-camera video recording system (30 Hz) to capture driver's face, over-the-shoulder, wide-angle rearward, and forward scene
• Ruggedness and crash survivability

The DAS distributed data acquisition method provides a very flexible and maintainable hardware data collection system. VTTI's DAS can be unobtrusively installed in vehicles to facilitate naturalistic driving behavior during controlled driving on the Virginia Smart Road testbed or in naturalistic on-road settings. The DAS instrumentation is concealed from the driver as much as possible. For example, cameras are mounted behind mirrors, while wires and other data recording equipment are hidden under interior panels. The DAS is designed to facilitate a rapid installation/uninstallation and great care is taken to leave the vehicle in its original condition.