Highly Automated Systems Safety Center of Excellence

Highly automated transportation systems hold extraordinary promise—and new kinds of risk. Assessing safety implications is complex, especially when systems intersect across air, land, and water. Rapidly evolving technology requires nimble evaluation and validation.

Established by Congress, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) Highly Automated Systems Safety Center of Excellence (HASS COE) provides deep expertise and far-reaching insight as a central resource on automation for USDOT and its partners in academia and industry.

A Highly Automated Transportation System (HATS) is one that makes use of automation to achieve its goals—safety, efficiency, speed, or other benefits—in ways that are beyond the understanding, predictability, or possibly even intervention of highly trained operators.

The team brings together research and implementation specialists from government, academia, and industry versed in the many, diverse aspects of HATS: 

• Validation, testing, and safety assurance 

• Autonomy stack design and integration 

• Communications and interoperability 

• State and local deployment

• Sensor performance 

• Simulation and virtual testing

• Computer science 

• Cybersecurity 

• Data 

• Artificial intelligence

• Machine learning

Presented by FLETC and US DOT