Digital Twins to Increase Mobility in Rural South Carolina
Description: The overarching research goal is to alter the way in which transportation infrastructure is evaluated. This will be approached through the leveraging of emerging technologies in the vehicular transportation sector, namely autonomy and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications. In short, the research team foresees a future where bridge evaluation is carried out autonomously without the need for complex and costly loading scenarios. The proposed effort is a small and needed step toward that future. The specific objective of this project is to develop a ‘digital twin’ of for a bridge type that is commonly load restricted and serves much of rural South Carolina. This objective will be achieved through close collaboration with the SCDOT and an industrial collaborator, Structural Monitoring Solutions (www.smsshm.com). The project team will instrument a bridge and develop the digital twin by leveraging experience gained through similar projects in related fields, including monitoring and remote assessment of nuclear infrastructure and autonomous aircraft. Intellectual Merit: The SCDOT is in the process of load rating all bridges in its very substantial inventory. The team proposes a very different approach grounded in their experience with live load testing in the field, full-scale laboratory testing of bridge components, sensing with a focus on machine learning and edge analytics, and numerical simulation. Broader Impacts: This project seeks to improve the mobility of freight as well as emergency vehicles and school buses in rural South Carolina. Recent advances in sensing, artificial intelligence, and communications will be leveraged to achieve this specific goal. The project team seeks to influence the development of Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) technology to greatly reduce the cost associated with bridge evaluation while increasing the fidelity of the evaluation. The project team is partnered with the SCDOT (through ongoing research investigations) and an industrial collaborator, Structural Monitoring Solutions, to assure the technology will be impactful and transferred.
Language
- English
Project
- Status: Completed
- Funding: $118662
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Contract Numbers:
69A3551747117
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Sponsor Organizations:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
University Transportation Centers Program
Department of Transportation
Washington, DC United States 20590Center for Connected Multimodal Mobility
Clemson University
Clemson, SC United States 29634University of South Carolina, Columbia
502 Byrnes Building
Columbia, SC United States 29208 1600 Harden Street
Columbia, South Carolina United States 29204 -
Managing Organizations:
University of South Carolina, Columbia
502 Byrnes Building
Columbia, SC United States 29208 -
Project Managers:
Ziehl, Paul
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Performing Organizations:
University of South Carolina, Columbia
502 Byrnes Building
Columbia, SC United States 29208 1600 Harden Street
Columbia, South Carolina United States 29204 -
Principal Investigators:
Ziehl, Paul
Comert, Gurcan
Bayat, Mahmoud
Soltangharaei, Vafa
- Start Date: 20210915
- Expected Completion Date: 20220331
- Actual Completion Date: 0
- USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Automation; Bridge management systems; Rural areas; Structural health monitoring; Vehicle to infrastructure communications
- Geographic Terms: South Carolina
- Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Data and Information Technology; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Vehicles and Equipment;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01838155
- Record Type: Research project
- Source Agency: Center for Connected Multimodal Mobility
- Contract Numbers: 69A3551747117
- Files: UTC, RIP
- Created Date: Mar 6 2022 1:54PM