Improving the safety of automated vehicles in regional Australia by reducing fatigue

Campus Plus congratulates QUT (Queensland University of Technology) and Seeing Machines on securing another National Industry PhD Program Award from the Australian Government Department of Education. Lewis Cockram has commenced his PhD studies under the supervision of QUT’s Professor Ronald Schroeter and Dr Jonny Kuo from Seeing Machines.

With automated vehicles increasingly being used in regional Australia, this project aims to design a naturalistic conversational agent (NCA) to reduce passive fatigue, reduce driver error and increase driver performance. By leveraging advancements in artificial intelligence and using state-of-the-art driver monitoring system technologies (DMS), the project will deliver a comprehensive analysis of the development of passive fatigue in commercial automated vehicle operation and develop a functional, human-centric prototype of an NCA. The outcomes of the project are expected to boost the nation’s domestic freight capacity and improve road safety for all regional Australians.