Research Collaboration between YTI and UNM

Yayasan Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali Berdaftar (YTI) and University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM) 

The Research Grant Agreement between Yayasan Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali Berdaftar (YTI) and University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM) was made on December 15th, 2021, and will be active until December 2023. The research grant agreement was aimed to explore the research and publication along with prototype development in the fields of: Vehicle-in-the-loop Safety Testing Platform for Autonomous Vehicle using Malaysian Road and Traffic Environment. This project is designed in line with National Automotive Policy (NAP) 2020 to support the development and safety testing of autonomous vehicles in Malaysia.

As part of the research collaboration between YTI and UNM, a Professional Chair named Yayasan Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali has been established in UNM to serve the purpose of the collaboration. The tenure for this Chair shall be consistent with the duration of the research project which is 24 months. In order to provide mentorship to the Chair, Professor Dr Haider Abbas from Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering has been appointed as the Chairholder. Meanwhile, Ir. Ts. Dr. Vimal Rau Aparow has been appointed as the Project Leader for the project as stated in the research grant agreement. Besides, Ir. Ts. Dr. Vimal Rau Aparow has been appointed as the Chair Manager to administer the Chair and research activities. The scopes of Chair activities are:

• To conduct research activities as stated in the research grant agreement related to research topic on safety testing of autonomous vehicle focusing on Malaysian road and traffic environment
• To submit progress report quarterly to update the research progress and update the achievement that has been completed under the Professional Chair
• To make presentations, attend meetings, events and other joint activities at the reasonable request of YTI for purposes of progress reporting and knowledge sharing activities.

Engagement of the YTI research project in UNM

Autonomous vehicles have been tested to adapt automatically in multiple road conditions and environments with different types of traffic scenarios. However, a large part of the testing has been conducted in controlled environments and with controlled road user movements. Besides, autonomous vehicles were largely tested in developed countries, mostly on highways with hardly any pedestrian movements. Although some automotive researchers have attempted to account for these traffic conditions, most of their research relied heavily on controlled environments only. For the most part, theoretically based simulations were directly implemented in actual vehicles for on-road testing. This type of testing is insufficient and inadequate to optimize the performance of autonomous vehicles on Malaysian roads. It can be noted that there are three major challenges in deploying autonomous vehicles in Malaysia which are:

1. Large number of road users such as pedestrians, cyclist and motorcyclist
2. Unpredictable of road user’s behaviors on actual road during interaction
3. Malaysian road and traffic environments in urban cities

In order to overcome these drawbacks, an adequate testing platform is required before deploying autonomous vehicles in Malaysia. Therefore, this project focuses on the development of a testing platform for safety assessment of autonomous vehicles within a virtual environment using a motion platform-based vehicle driving simulator with human-machine-interface (HMI) capability. The testing platform that is aimed to be developed can be used to supervise autonomous vehicles to adapt on Malaysian roads and traffic scenarios and to evaluate the capability of an autonomous vehicle to perform emergency braking and obstacles avoidance autonomously to minimize road accidents.

In order to conduct the research activities effectively, the Project Leader has established a new research group under the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FOSE) called the Automated Vehicle Engineering System (AVES) Research Group. This research group is formed with several researchers from FOSE to support the research activities in the YTI research grant. Several postgraduate students have been appointed under this research group to conduct the research activity focusing on the safety testing of autonomous vehicles using electric vehicle configuration.

Yayasan Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali (YTI)

Yayasan Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali (YTI) was established on October 10, 1999 to commemorate the contributions and dedication of the late Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali to PNB as the first PNB Chairman and the country in general. The YTI was established with the objective to receive and administer funds for education through the provision of scholarships to outstanding students who have a place in prestigious universities abroad. In addition, the YTI has established Professorial Chairs in the name of Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali at local universities as determined by the Trustees. The YTI has four (4) Professorial Chair at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), University of Malaya (UM), Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) and Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNIRAZAK). The YTI also organizes the YTI Series of Public Lectures as part of the sharing of knowledge with civil society. YTI also finances other educational purposes determined by the Trustee as the provision of research grants from time to time to lead the academic research in the field approved by the Trustees.