Watch the recording of our fifth webinar on our ADS for Rural America project, titled, "Nine Things to Know When Testing AVs on Rural Roads."

This webinar discussed and showed video examples of our top nine challenges and successes of testing a highly automated vehicle on rural Iowa roads. The top nine takeaways are:

1. Sensor range turning onto high-speed road can be an issue. Sensors may not see far enough, or stationary objects may hide oncoming traffic from LiDAR view. 
2. Dust clouds or spray from water sprinklers can sometimes be recognized as obstacles.
3. Pedestrian detection and categorization is not always accurate.
4. Four-way stops: the AV can be slow to react, creeps.
5. The AV follows farm equipment slowly, cannot pass.
6. Horse and buggies are recognized as vehicles, but automation doesn't adjust as most humans would.
7. Automation doesn't slow down or adapt to weather/environmental conditions or blind hills and curves.
8. V2V "school bus" encounters: cellular signal loss can be an issue especially in remote areas.
9. The "nudge" feature on the gravel road doesn't always nudge the vehicle far enough or early enough to the right when another vehicle is approaching.

Watch the recording for more details and video examples of from our drives of each takeaway:

More information about the Driving Safety Research Institute at dsri.uiowa.edu.