Cedarville Magazine, Summer 2018

It wasn’t too long ago that self-driving cars seemed like something straight out of an episode of the 1960s Saturday morning cartoon show The Jetsons . But childhood fiction is quickly becoming grown- up fact, and a Cedarville professor is driving research that may accelerate the development of these cars of our future. Danielle (Scarpone) Fredette ’12 knew from the time she was very young that she wanted to pursue a science or technology career. “I loved to discover how things worked and how they could work better,” she said. “When I discovered that engineers were the ones who made things work, I knew that was the field for me.” She took that passion for discovery to Cedarville University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. At Cedarville, her professors fueled her excitement for learning. “My professors created a safe place to learn,” Fredette explained. “They never made me feel like something was too difficult for me or my classmates to understand or master. They also made it clear that learning hard things would require significant discipline.” AUTONOMOUS AUTOMOBILES Following graduation from Cedarville, Fredette attended The Ohio State University, where she pursued both master’s and doctoral degrees. Her advisor at Ohio State was working on intelligent transportation design, so this became the focus of her graduate research, specifically on how computers can be used to find a safer, more fuel- efficient way to drive. For her doctoral dissertation, her research focused on how a group of vehicles traveling together can drive more efficiently. She examined what factors could lead to the greatest savings in fuel: position of the vehicles within the group, closeness to other vehicles, and speed. For example, we know that ducklings swim in a line behind their mother because it saves energy, making it easier for them to swim; Fredette’s research applied that same principle to vehicles driving in multiple lanes on the highway. “Imagine a fleet of trucks driving together,” Fredette said. “Is there a way that each vehicle can interact on the road that will help save fuel for the group? We know that trucks can save fuel by convoying, or driving closely together in a line, which mitigates the negative effects of air drag. But what other behavioral possibilities are there? That’s what I wanted to discover.” So how does Fredette’s research relate to the next generation of autonomous vehicles? “Some of the fuel-saving maneuvers we’ve come up with — extremely close convoying, for example — are either difficult or unsafe for a driver to execute with the necessary precision,” she explained. “Computer ‘drivers’ may not be comparable to human drivers in analytical skill, but they are superior TRANSPORTATION BY MICHELE (CUMMINGS) SOLOMON ’91 Cedarville Magazine | 11