Prototyping Preceding Vehicle Identification System Technical Report; Identifying Conflicts and Concerns in Connected Vehicle Systems

Trucking industry has been vital to the US since the construction of the National Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s. However, since the founding of the trucking industry, there has been increased safety hazards for drivers, which has become a severe issue in recent years, specifically as a result of increased size and weight of the trucks. In this situation, a connected vehicle (CV) system with vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication and information-sharing capabilities has been proposed to improve truck drivers’ safety. To ensure the successful deployment of the CV system, both technological improvement and sociotechnical practices have to be done. Therefore, the subjects of both projects are intertwined to commercialize the CV system. The technical report aims to prototype a preceding vehicle identification system for the CVs to overcome the GPS low accuracy issue and improve the security of the CV system. The STS paper provides analysis of how ethical practices of technology providers could help build trusting relationships with customers which ensures the successful deployment of the CV system. In summary, a complex system like the CV system needs combined efforts of technological development and ethical practices to be commercialized successfully in the real world.
Technical Report : Preceding vehicle identification is vital for various tasks such as establishing cooperative platooning and overcoming limitations of conventional Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). In order to evaluate the performance and secureness of a proposed identification strategy, this report aims to build a prototype preceding vehicle identification system and assess it in the real world. The prototype consists of a Jetson Nano board, a GPS sensor, a TOF sensor, and a Wi-Fi dongle. Through the discussion, this report proposes detailed functionalities of each component in the system and records the selection process of hardware. Eventually, the report shows the result of the security evaluation which will provide insights for readers to understand how well the aforementioned identification strategy performs. The ultimate goal of this report is to evaluate the commercial viability and the security of the prototype.
STS Research Paper: This paper aims to investigate the conflicts between technology providers and freight companies. That is, the paper wants to provide a deeper understanding of the situation that freight companies do not trust technology companies and so refuse to incorporate the new technology in an effort to protect their data. The paper will research the following research question: How can commitment to virtue ethics help build trusting relationships between technology companies and customers such as trucking industries? To answer the question, this paper applies the discourse analysis method which will be used to identify sources for further discussion. Meanwhile, the framework of virtue ethics will be used to provide guidance on how to evaluate the morality of the companies’ actions inside those sources. Through the analysis, this paper seeks to evaluate the immoral behaviors of current engineers and emphasize that only by prioritizing customers’ well-being in ethical practices can technology providers form trusting relationships with them. This paper is meaningful for the fields of STS since it pinpoints the strength of virtue ethics. It is not sufficient to resolve the privacy concern of customers just by technological developments. Technology companies need to build trusting relationships with customers by practicing virtue ethics. More importantly, virtue ethics is not legally binding which causes a lot of unethical practices. The analysis of this research forces engineers to form a sense of commitment toward those virtues.
Conducting both projects together forces me to understand the complexity of deploying and commercializing a product in the real world. That is, when solving a problem with engineering practice, both technological development and sociotechnical practices are indispensable. If I only conduct the technical report, I will not grasp the importance of understanding the effect of different factors in the CV system. Failing to build trusting relationships with customers by practicing virtue ethics will result in customers refusing to incorporate CV technology. Similarly, If I only researched the ethical practices and trusting relationship building in the CV system, I would have missed the foundation of solving the truck drivers’ safety problem which is the advanced technology. I understand that when developing a product or defining a problem, engineers should consider the effects from both the technical side and society side. Only by considering both sides together can engineers successfully develop and commercialize a product.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Technical Advisor: Yixin Sun

STS Advisor: Bryn Seabrook, Kathryn Neeley

Technical Team Members: Zeyu Mu, Guancheng Tu, Austin Shi, Kun Yang, Yixin Sun, Cong Shen, B. Brian Park