Professor Zuduo Zheng has been awarded a prestigious Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, receiving almost $1.3 million to advance the future of automated vehicle (AV) technology and safety.
Pioneering safer roads with AV technology
Automated vehicles are often promoted as the future of transport, promising to reduce human error, ease congestion, and cut emissions. However, without human intervention, AVs also present new safety challenges, particularly in complex environments shared with human drivers and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.
Professor Zheng’s ARC Future Fellowship project seeks to address this gap by developing a ground-breaking virtual testing platform that simulates dangerous traffic dynamics in a controlled, augmented virtual environment. This simulation-based approach will allow researchers and engineers to study how AVs interact with human-driven vehicles and other road users in high-risk scenarios, without endangering lives or relying solely on expensive real-world testing.
of Civil Engineering.
A one-stop solution for AV testing
The platform will serve as a cost-effective and scalable solution to support the widespread and safe deployment of AVs across Australia and beyond. By focusing on how AVs respond in complex traffic systems, the research will generate new insights into safe decision-making algorithms and result in the development of an error-free motion planning method which is a critical component in AV navigation.
This project will deliver a unified framework for testing AV performance in the most unpredictable and risky environments, with the goal of bringing AV deployment to a new level of safety, efficiency, and public trust.
Contributing to the “Triple-Zero” goal
The research is also aligned with the broader societal vision of achieving triple-zero outcomes:
- Zero road fatalities
- Zero serious injuries
- Zero emissions
By enhancing the safety, efficiency, and sustainability of AV technologies, the project has the potential to transform urban mobility while reducing the social and economic costs of road trauma.
Global impact and national leadership
This Fellowship recognises Professor Zheng’s leadership in transportation engineering. The outcomes of the project will offer both industry and government a validated pathway for safely integrating AVs into existing transportation networks.
We congratulate Professor Zheng on this significant achievement and look forward to the impact this important work will have, helping to pave the way for safer autonomous vehicles on our roads.
