Enhanced work zone safety through cooperative autonomous vehicle systems

Despite improvements in work zone safety, injuries and fatalities remain a significant problem for work zone personnel. Crew and vehicles are often protected with the use of a vehicle located at the rear of the work zone, which is fitted with a mechanism to attenuate the impact energy of a vehicle. This vehicle, called an impact attenuation, or crash cushion, vehicle, is designed and placed to be struck by any errant vehicles; however, this vehicle is an active part of the work crew and is often manned by a member of the work crew, and this person can still be injured or killed when the vehicle is struck. This paper will present recent work by SwRI in conjunction with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to replace this manned vehicle with a fully-autonomous vehicle, capable of communicating with other vehicles in the work crew, traffic management systems, and, using visual recognition techniques, follow other vehicles in the crew or even respond to arm gestures by a member of the work crew.