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Life-saving technology for the cars of tomorrow

Students from Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences (Mülheim an der Ruhr) and Wayne State University (Detroit) are collaborating on automotive projects. They developed an automotive control unit for the driver's seat to warn of drowsiness. The results of the joint teaching project will be published in a journal "IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles." In the current project, they are working on an automatic emergency system to prevent heat death in infants in parked cars.

Student Group from Wayne State University’s College of Engineering, Detroit, visit HRW - Results of joint teaching project published in specialist journal

Professor Dr. Klaus Thelen (HRW) and Professor Lubna Alazzawi (Wayne State University - WSU) are proud of their students. The renowned journal "IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles" has decided to publish the results of their joint teaching project from last year. "It is a great success for our Bachelor students to be co-authors of an article in such a renowned journal," says Klaus Thelen.

As head of the "Automotive Electronics and Electric Mobility" programme, Thelen started a collaboration with colleagues from the College of Engineering at WSU last spring. Based on industrial processes, the German and American students were to work on a project together, with distributed tasks and mainly online. Klaus Thelen knows: "A so-called "multi-site-project“ with development teams in several countries that have to work together virtually is very common in large companies."

To simulate this situation, the module "Vehicle Electronics and Sensors" was planned together with WSU as a COIL project. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a learning format that combines virtual, collaborative and international aspects. The task for the students was to develop an automotive control unit for a driver's seat that controls all the seat's functions while recognising the driver's seating position. AI algorithms and a camera installed in the dashboard were used to detect driver inattention or fatigue and alert the driver by vibrations and audio signals. Great importance was attached to compatibility with current vehicle standards as well as low product costs.

After the very successful start in 2022, the cooperation between HRW and WSU continues this year. This time, the assignment for the students is to prevent the heatstroke of small children in parked cars, which still occurs too frequently in the USA. Sensors are used to detect the presence of a child, and to process its bio-signals and the temperature inside the vehicle. The students will also develop an app which will alert the vehicle owners and activate emergency call systems.

From 8 – 13 May, 2023, the group of American students visited Mülheim where they met their colleagues from HRW in person for the first time. After three intensive days of working together in the lab, the joint student group gave their first milestone presentation to Prof. Dr. Klaus Thelen (HRW), Prof. Dr. Lubna Alazzawi and Prof. Dr. Mohammed Ismail (WSU) on the interim results of the joint project. Both groups will continue to work together online until the end of the semester. In July, the group of HRW-students will in turn travel to Detroit for the final presentation of their project at WSU to their professors and representatives of the automotive industry.

Photo:

Leila Sharara (WSU doctoral student), Prof. Dr. Lubna Alazzawi and Prof. Dr. Mohammed Ismail (front row) with five WSU students and Prof. Dr. Klaus Thelen with his student tutors Jonas Gillner, Erik Jordan and Jan Wolf as well as four HRW students (back row).