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Labs

ATI’s Emergent Initiative Program

Our lab program is an investment in identifying areas of opportunity to incubate new research opportunities that are expected to mature into a level of “research center.” These labs are a collaborative effort that puts the institute’s research themes into measurable action. We also intend to venture into other areas of research that are not directly outlined in these themes. In the labs, we identify public transportation issues and ways to address them with an interdisciplinary approach.

Control Algorithms and Sensing for Autonomy Lab (CASA)

DIGITAL TRANSPORTATION COLLABORATORY

The Control, Algorithms and Sensing for Autonomy Lab is interested in advancing state-of-the-art autonomous vehicle technology. The CASA lab is directly involved in student competitions such as the Indy Autonomous Challenge where the boundaries of what is possible with autonomous vehicles are being pushed to new levels. The CASA lab seeks to continue to innovate in the autonomous vehicle and ADAS area while also examining safety-related aspects of these technologies. 

Director: Brandon Dixon 

Laboratory for Location Science (LLS)

DIGITAL TRANSPORTATION COLLABORATORY

The Laboratory for Location Science is dedicated to interdisciplinary research that addresses applied and theoretical problems with a fundamental focus on spatial relationships and efficiently solving problems with a location component. The Laboratory supports a broad range of scientific approaches and technologies and serves a wide community of scholars. The Laboratory provides research, education, training, and outreach opportunities to students, faculty, and our community of stakeholders.

Director: Kevin Curtin 

Virtual Immersive Space and Innovative Technology Lab (VISIT)

DIGITAL TRANSPORTATION COLLABORATORY

The Virtual Immersive Space and Innovative Technology Lab is focused on discovering, creating, and integrating cutting-edge visualization and immersion technology as part of advanced transportation research. This technology includes virtual, augmented, and extended reality as well as directly rendered recreations of physical environments with local and remote sensor sources.

Director: Jeremy Pate 

Connected and Automated Mobility Lab (CAM)

CONNECTED VEHICLES AND INFRASTRUCTURE COLLABORATORY

We are rapidly approaching a frontier where connected and smart technologies are poised to propel transportation into a future of autonomous vehicles, connected infrastructure, and intelligent mobility systems.

The focus research areas of CAM Lab are under the umbrella of connected and automated mobility as follows:

  • ground connected and automated vehicles
  • cybersecurity of vehicles and infrastructure
  • privacy of connected and automated mobility
  • unmanned aerial vehicles (drone) for transportation applications
  • smart and connected transportation infrastructure
  • urban air mobility (UAM)

The CAM Lab’s long-term vision is to conduct research to ensure safe, efficient, and resilient travel within tomorrow’s intelligent transportation systems.

Director: Mizanur Rahman 

Lab for Intelligent Sensing and Computing (LISC)

CONNECTED VEHICLES AND INFRASTRUCTURE COLLABORATORY

LISC is focusing on solving unique environmental sensing challenges in connected and autonomous vehicles with multi-modal sensors (radar, camera, LiDAR). Research projects include automotive radar signal processing, physical-aware radar machine learning, multi-modal sensor fusion, multi-vehicle-based collaborative sensing, and computationally efficient algorithm innovations in signal processing, sensing and fusion. 

Director: Shunqiao Sun 

Traffic Lab (TL)

CONNECTED VEHICLES AND INFRASTRUCTURE COLLABORATORY

The University of Alabama Traffic Lab is dedicated to traffic hardware and operations research. Researchers at UA work with all major manufacturers of traffic signal controllers. The Traffic Lab has been involved with producing the next-generation advanced traffic controller (ATC) data standards for automated traffic signal performance measures (ATSPMs). The Traffic Lab has access to more than 200 traffic signals across the state in multiple cities. The Traffic Lab also works on connected vehicle research and the integration with traffic infrastructure. The Traffic Lab has close research ties with the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT). Funding and support has been through ALDOT, USDOT, FHWA, NSF, DOE, and others.

Director: Alex Hainen 

Complex Spatial Systems Lab (CSSL)

SAFETY, SECURITY, AND ACCESSIBILITY COLLABORATORY

The Complex Spatial Systems Lab advances understanding of transportation systems as ‘systems of systems’ with a focus on the interdependent challenges of security, equity, and sustainability. Transportation systems intertwine these challenges in salient issues like social vulnerability, infrastructure resilience, and uneven impacts of climate change. CSSL integrates the perspectives and tools of geographical, location, and socio-ecological system sciences to investigate (in)accessible transportation systems as both the causes of and solutions to economic, social, and spatial inequities and security concerns.

Directors: Kevin Curtin & Nicholas Magliocca

Alabama Mobility and Power Initiative (AMP)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND FUEL ECONOMY COLLABORATORY

The AMP Initiative will serve as a research and development hub for creating and sustaining modern mobility and power technologies, developing charging infrastructure and managing power delivery to support large-scale growth in electric vehicles. This initiative will further strengthen UA’s status as a leader in mobility and power research and provides a great opportunity for a strong coalition of partners to address innovation, workforce development and commercialization in mobility and power research.

Stakeholders: The Alabama Power Company, Mercedes-Benz U.S. International & The University of Alabama

Decarbonization Lab (DL)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND FUEL ECONOMY COLLABORATORY

The Decarbonization Lab will address decarbonization of the transportation sector.  The lab will implement a systems framework to examine and develop technologies towards the implementation of a clean, economical and sustainable transportation system in the State of Alabama through a) the utilization of renewable energy in transportation, and b) direct air capture of atmospheric CO2 for decarbonization and the development of products such as carbon-negative fuels, batteries and materials.

Director: Shahriar Amini

Flexible Integration Laboratory for Distributed Energy Systems (FIELD)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND FUEL ECONOMY COLLABORATORY

At Flexible Integration Laboratory for Distributed Energy Systems, we develop power electronics hardware and software solutions to better integrate electric vehicles, energy storage systems, and renewable energy systems to the future power grid operation. In particular, our work includes modeling and analysis of residential Level-2 charging, DC fast charging, and extreme fast charging (XFC) systems’ integration to the power grid operation. The solutions developed at FIELD provide decentralized control solutions of active electric vehicle end-nodes to help accelerate their integration to the power grid. Learn more about FIELD, https://mck.people.ua.edu.

Director: Mithat Kisacikoglu

Emergency Communication and Community Resilience Lab (EC2RL)

SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE COLLABORATORY

The Emergency Communications and Community Resilience Laboratory is an established interdisciplinary Community of Practice for research in emergency communications and community resilience. The mission of the EC2RL is to coordinate the Community of Practice with external strategic partners on research topics in disaster management and community resilience. The research taxonomy for the lab includes weather warning communication, community and infrastructure resiliency, disaster preparedness and mitigation, regional emergency planning, climate change adaptation, and disaster response and recovery. 

Director: Laura Myers 

Lab of Innovative Materials for Transportation Infrastructure Decarbonization (LIMTID)

SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE COLLABORATORY

The LIMTID aims to decarbonize the transportation infrastructure through material innovation and using transportation infrastructure as a potent lever to combat climate change.

Directors: Jialai Wang, Wei Song, Armen Amirkhanian, & Chao Zhao