CIAM-UTC-REG29

Research Team

PI: Steve Efe, Morgan State University

UTC Project Info

Project Description

Given the growing importance of science and engineering research in meeting national goals, US research needs to remain at world frontiers if the United States is to boost economic productivity and competitiveness. Morgan State University (MSU) recognizes the value of continued diversification and growth of Maryland’s and U.S. economy, and it continues to develop its research capabilities to ensure the next generation of STEM graduates is multidisciplinary, collaborative, and working in an environment that fosters their most creative ideas. As part of CIAMTIS outreach activities, we will engage in educational and research outreach to undergraduate and graduate students in the transportation engineering field. Our particular interest is to train the next generation of transportation engineers in supporting the Maryland Department of Transportation (MD-DOT) Sustainable Mobility Initiative of automation technologies in electric vehicle (EV) operations and meeting transportation energy demands. Maryland is currently home to just over 12,000 EVs and aiming to put 300,000 EVs on the road by 2025 to boost EV adoption. With the evolutionary wireless EV technologies for sustainable transport network, their implementation in densely populated cities in MD can provide continuous vehicle charging, thus, eliminating the EV range issues and need for large battery capacities. However, one of the teething problems to be envisaged in wireless electric vehicle charging implementation in MD is maintaining the road infrastructure to support this innovative technology for economic viability. Current approaches for damage detection of roads such as visual inspection are time consuming, as difficulty in scanning larger surfaces of square miles, need for a spatially-referenced grid, and skilled operators are required.