Is a future with self-driving vehicles closer than we think? Researchers aim to find out

The collaborative research project wrapped up a significant four-year study on the viability of autonomous vehicles in rural settings, focusing specifically on the challenges and opportunities faced by communities in southeastern Ohio. The Rural Automated Driving Systems (ADS) project, which commenced in 2020 and concluded in June 2024, aimed to collect data on the performance of self-driving cars in less populated areas, where infrastructure can differ greatly from urban environments.

Led by Jay Wilhem, director of the Avionics Engineering Center and associate professor in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, the project involved a team of undergraduate and graduate students from the University’s mechanical engineering and computer science departments, as well as Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Issam Khoury and Julie Brown, an associate professor in the College of Health Sciences and Professions. Together, they drove an autonomous vehicle along rural state roads, meticulously gathering data to evaluate how well the technology adapted to the unique challenges of the region, as well as performed community outreach to survey people’s perceptions of the technology and the potential benefits.

“Autonomous vehicles have predominantly been tested in urban areas with consistent infrastructure. Our goal was to assess their effectiveness in rural contexts, where access to essential services like food and healthcare can be limited,” explained Wilhelm. “This research highlights both the technological advancements needed and the potential benefits these vehicles could bring to underserved communities.”

When choosing to focus the efforts in rural areas, especially southeastern Ohio, several considerations were taken into place as to why this would be beneficial for those who live in these types of areas. According to Wilhelm, southeastern Ohio suffers from being a food and health care desert where often times people have to travel to surrounding counties to get necessary needs taken care of or rely on family members or friends to drive them around.

“We found that a lot of people in this region don’t have access to reliable transportation. It’s normally family members coming to get them. In big cities, there are public transportation options and everything is more centrally located whereas in rural areas, these options aren’t available,” Khoury, who led the outreach efforts, added.

In addition to looking at the barriers that impact people in southeastern, Ohio, the team also emphasized how this technology could impact older generations. Khoury and Brown traveled across Ohio to rural regions with higher older populations to gain insights about their perceptions.

“Initially, many community members were skeptical about self-driving cars. However, after engaging in discussions about safety and the technology’s capabilities, most shifted their views positively,” Khoury noted.

According to Wilhem, the way the autonomous vehicles worked was similar to having cruise control on. The safety “driver” would hit a button and the autonomy would take over, however, if at any point the autonomous portion of the vehicle stopped working, the safety driver would easily be able to take over.

The team faced various challenges, including GPS signal loss in remote areas and the detection of traffic signals. Despite these obstacles, they successfully identified critical areas for improvement, such as enhancing the vehicle's ability to recognize stoplights and navigate complex environments like uptown Athens, where pedestrian traffic is high.

The findings from this comprehensive study suggest that while the technology is advancing, significant work is still needed in both regulatory frameworks and technological infrastructure to support autonomous vehicles in rural areas. The research revealed a strong demand for improved cellular and GPS coverage, particularly in regions where services are spotty, which could hinder the effectiveness of autonomous driving systems.

Undergraduate and graduate students also had the opportunity to gain experience working on the project with many of them being the ones to operate the computer in the back of the vehicle, collecting data.

“Working with large amounts of data in Python and other data visualization platforms gave me a lot of valuable experience that will definitely be applicable to work later on in my career,” Tony Tonkovich, a recent OHIO graduate who is now pursuing a Masters of Engineering, said. “The opportunity to work on a project with an autonomous vehicle is also a large step towards some of my career goals. Having this early experience working with autonomous systems is extremely valuable and will open future opportunities for very cool careers.”

For the project, most of Tonkovich’s work consisted of analyzing the various data (such as GPS and LiDAR) that was collected while their group was driving the autonomous vehicle around three planned routes in the greater Athens area. One of the specific things he focused on was studying the times that a driver had to takeover from autonomy to manually operate the vehicle.

“I was looking for trends and challenges that were specific to rural Appalachia in order to promote additional research to hopefully encourage future development of autonomous driving for rural communities,” Tonkovich explained. 

Tonkovich adds that through working on this project, he went from knowing practically nothing about autonomous vehicles to the different systems that go into them and encourages students interested in researching these types of systems to reach out to Wilhelm for other opportunities.

As the demand for innovative transportation solutions grows, the findings from this study may play a pivotal role in shaping the future of mobility in rural Ohio and beyond.

“Some areas, especially in urban settings, are already doing this, however, the overall technology needs improved before there can be demand and this can become a reality for those living in rural areas. I think five to 10 years down the line we could see more autonomous vehicles starting out with corporate companies like Uber that could offer experiences for their customers before the demand expands to people being able to purchase one themselves,” Wilhelm said. “But once we get there, the opportunities for a more accessible mode of transportation could be endless.”