Spartan science is making transportation safer
Every time you buckle up, there’s a good chance Michigan State University research is helping keep you safe. With more than 50 faculty across MSU Mobility and the College of Engineering, Spartan researchers are tackling transportation challenges from every angle, including safer roads, stronger vehicles, smarter infrastructure and secure autonomous systems.
Using our campus as a living mobility laboratory, MSU researchers partner with federal agencies and industry to deliver real-world solutions that protect drivers in Michigan, across the nation and around the world.
Designing safer roads
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speed was a factor in 29% of all road deaths in the U.S. for 2023. Peter Savolainen, MSU Research Foundation Professor in the College of Engineering, has been leading efforts to reduce traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities by studying ways to encourage drivers to slow down with support from the Federal Highway Administration, as well as subsequent projects from the Michigan, Minnesota and Washington Departments of Transportation.
“We have had a number of projects focused on what factors impact travel speeds,” says Savolainen, “because speeds have the biggest impact on safety both in terms of the average speeds and the variability in speeds. Speeds are a particular concern in urban environments, where we have seen major increases in fatalities, especially those involving pedestrians and bicyclists.”
Savolainen and his team’s field research specifically looks at how a driver’s behavior is influenced by roadway or traffic characteristics. For example, does a raised median in the middle of the road or on-street parking slow more drivers down? And how do these effects vary across different contextual environments such as different speed limits or urban versus rural communities?
“Ultimately, this research is about creating a better, safer Michigan,” says Savolainen, a native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. “With the significant advances we have seen in terms of vehicular safety features, including automation technologies, we would expect to see marked decreases in traffic fatalities. However, the opposite has occurred, especially post-pandemic. Our role at MSU is to better understand why this has occurred and to design our road systems to help address this important public health issue.”
As a result of Savolainen’s research, the state has implemented the use of dynamic speed feedback signs throughout Michigan that measure a driver’s speed using radar and display that speed in real time.
Protecting transportation infrastructure
The American Society of Civil Engineers 2025 Report Card recently confirmed that modernizing America’s transportation infrastructure is not just an opportunity — it is a national imperative. Following high-profile failures like the 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, the demand for continuous, high-precision monitoring of our aging transportation lifelines has never been more critical.
In a vital, innovative use of technology, Surya Congress, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is using drones and artificial intelligence–powered computer vision to safeguard transportation infrastructure assets across the country.
His work addresses diverse structural and geotechnical challenges like landslides. Congress led projects with the Federal Railroad Administration using drones to improve safety and inspection across railroad corridors. Congress guided a collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Transportation or MnDOT monitoring the vulnerability of critical soil embankments and slopes.
"This project with MSU ensures that maintenance decisions are data-driven, using advanced technologies to create a high-precision understanding of risk, improving safety for both travelers and the surrounding communities," says Raul Velasquez, a geomechanics research engineer with MnDOT.
Another project Congress piloted is with the Alaska Department of Transportation conducting 360-degree bridge monitoring. This multifaceted research, funded by federal and state agencies, provides a comprehensive approach to tracking and monitoring changes in infrastructure health conditions over time.
“These novel technologies give us the unparalleled advantage of examining entire transportation corridors safely, quickly and efficiently, whether it’s a remote bridge in Alaska or a high-traffic urban embankment in Michigan,” says Congress. “This interdisciplinary research is vital because it moves us from reactive repairs to proactive, data-driven management, protecting not just our structures, but the commuters and communities that rely on them.”
By enabling faster, safer inspections across various assets, MSU’s work helps agencies identify problems — from vulnerability of slopes to distress in infrastructure assets — before they become disasters, safeguarding critical infrastructure and communities.
Engineering stronger vehicles
While lighter vehicles offer better gasoline mileage, engineers continue to ensure these vehicles are strong enough to protect the driver and passengers inside in the event of an accident.
Striking the right balance is at the heart of research being spearheaded by Mahmood Haq, a professor in the College of Engineering and director of the Composite Vehicle Research Center, and Satish Udpa, a University Distinguished Professor emeritus. Their team collaborates through federal funding from the U.S. Department of Defense through the U.S. Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center in Detroit.
“The key aspect of this project is a systems-level approach to accelerate innovation by integrating the latest advancements in battery technologies, communication antennas, composite materials, and advanced manufacturing and integrating them onto a prototype vehicle,” says Haq. “The bigger goal is to serve the nation and the state to maintain competitiveness of the automotive and defense industries and to create a trained workforce in these emerging areas.”
Udpa’s interest in the field extends beyond military applications to address two of the most pressing challenges for electric vehicles: range anxiety, or the fear of running out of battery charge before reaching the desired destination, and the stability issues associated with light-weighting.
“We are looking for ways to help people by eliminating range anxiety for EV users,” says Udpa. “We are used to seeing vehicles with traditional internal combustion engines being able to travel 500 miles between gas tank refills. Electric vehicles have to offer a similar range to stay competitive, and light-weighting is one of the better strategies to accomplish this. Since lighter vehicles also require less fuel, they are, environmentally speaking, a greener alternative.”
As vehicles become lighter, the stability of the vehicle is affected and small changes in the load could impact the dynamics of the vehicle. The researchers want to ensure the drivability of the vehicle remains the same irrespective of the passenger and luggage weight. This calls for the development of new sensors and control systems that ensure the stability of the vehicle no matter the load or terrain conditions.
Federal and state funding are critically important since technology can be made widely available to companies in the state without having to limit it to a single company supporting the research. The funding is also important because it supports talent development.
Preventing motor failure
Electrical machines can’t tell you when or which component is about to break. Shanelle Foster, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is developing online motor fault diagnosis and prognosis techniques to quickly identify when a component is likely to fail by monitoring its current performance and forecasting its future performance with support from the National Science Foundation.
“Failures can be mechanical or electrical,” says Foster. “We want to detect and diagnose what is happening before it becomes catastrophic.”
Electrical motors convert electrical energy into mechanical motion. If the motor powering an EV experiences an electrical failure or one of the parts that make up the motor breaks, it can be dangerous for the vehicle’s occupants.
“We want to be ready before something happens,” says Foster. “The electrical motor needs to be able to continue to operate until the driver can move the vehicle safely to the side of the road.”
Keeping autonomous vehicles safe from hackers
While researchers are looking for ways to keep autonomous, or self-driving, vehicles safe and secure on the roads, control and robotics expert Shaunak Bopardikar, an associate professor in the College of Engineering, is conducting federally funded research using game theory to control and operate vehicles and make them resilient to attacks on their sensors, communications or control signals.
“Hackers can attack a car’s computer system and stealthily corrupt sensors or control signals at various levels and make it unsafe for driving,” says Bopardikar, whose research in this area is funded by the National Science Foundation. “Maybe you can’t get into your car or maybe you are unable to distinguish how fast you are traveling from 65, 75 or 80 miles an hour.”
Bopardikar and his team use robots to test different scenarios on a small scale. And MSU’s campus provides a living transportation laboratory to do this, with passenger vehicles, buses, e-scooters and bicycles, and police and emergency vehicles traveling the roads across campus every day. Bopardikar's team hopes this research will not only make autonomous vehicles safer, but also build more consumer confidence in the future of mobility.
With federal support, Spartans are advancing mobility research that touches every aspect of modern transportation. And with continued funding, they can continue their momentum to make our roads, infrastructure and vehicles safer today and tomorrow.
Read more stories about MSU research making transportation safer for all.
For generations, Spartans have been changing the world through research. Federal funding helps power many of the discoveries that improve lives and keep America at the forefront of innovation and competitiveness. From lifesaving cancer treatments to solutions that advance technology, agriculture, energy and more, MSU researchers work every day to shape a better future for the people of Michigan and beyond. Learn more about MSU’s research impact powered by partnership with the federal government.