Page 16 - CEGE Magazine Fall 2023

Inspiring the Next Generation of Transportation Engineers
Starting at the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering, Benjamin Rosenblad (BCE 2023) was not even aware that transportation was a specialty within Civil Engineering. Four years later, he found himself heading
off to graduate school to study Next Generation Transportation Systems with the benefit of a competitive and highly prestigious fellowship from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP).
“I first thought I wanted to do structural engineering. Then as I started taking transportation engineering courses and doing research my interests changed. I found transportation engineering to be really exciting, especially some of the new technologies in the field like connected and automated vehicles.”
Rosenblad credits this shift to his CEGE major advisor Raphael Stern. Stern is an assistant professor of transportation engineering and has been with CEGE since 2019. He was drawn to this department because of CEGE’s longstanding tradition of driving innovation in transportation. Stern’s research lies at the intersection of technology and transportation.
The two transportation enthusiasts became acquainted during Rosenblad’s sophomore year. Here is how Rosenblad tells the story.
Rosenblad Discovers
Transportation Engineering
“In my Computer Applications class, many projects we did were associated with research done by a professor
in the department. One project was developing a simple automated vehicle controller in MatLab, which was related to Prof. Stern’s research. That was how I found out about transportation research. I wrote to him and mentioned
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how much I liked the project and that I was interested in his work.
“Then as a sophomore, I took
Prof. Stern’s Transportation
Engineering course and was
introduced to automated vehicles
as an aspect of civil engineering. It
was an area that I was not familiar with. I felt like I would have to get involved in research if I wanted to work in that area, so I asked Prof. Stern if he had any open research positions. He did and
he had an idea for a project.
“So, I started doing research congruently while taking Prof. Stern’s transportation engineering class. I did not have a lot of the skills going in, but Prof. Stern was very patient and helpful about getting me up to speed.
“The project involved developing a new car-following model to better represent the dynamics of adaptive cruise control (ACC) vehicles. That project lasted
one semester plus some time in the summer. During that project, I realized that I really liked doing research and working on problems without pre- defined answers. That first project got me interested in this whole area — transportation, automated vehicles, and doing research. The research
has been so enjoyable having a great mentor like Prof. Stern.”
Stern continued to nurture Rosenblad’s nascent interests throughout his undergraduate studies. It was Prof. Stern who encouraged Rosenblad to pursue graduate school, alerted him to the NSF GRFP, and guided him through the rigorous application process.
Further Research
With Stern’s research team, Rosenblad also worked on a project related to cybersecurity for ACC vehicles. He developed some models for how
Benjamin Rosenblad (left) with his CEGE advisor Raphael Stern.
automated vehicles might behave if there were a cyberattack on a vehicle. Using the data generated, the team estimated impacts on fuel consumption within the entire traffic stream.
Rosenblad’s most recent involvement was an ongoing research project studying how automated vehicles might impact ramp metering strategies in Minnesota.
“The thing I enjoyed most throughout
my undergraduate experience was doing research and working on these transportation problems. I thought working on problems like these would be a rewarding career.”
Rosenblad’s research also impacted his other classes, “My Capstone Design project addressed more traditional transportation problems, not having
to do with vehicle automation, but still important problems. In my Capstone project, we used a micro simulation software called Synchro to simulate traffic. It was cool because I understood what was going on behind the software. All the vehicles simulated in Synchro use a car-following model. In my research, I had actually developed a car-following model. It was cool to have an understanding of how the software works and why vehicles behaved the way they did in simulation.”
Rosenblad is attending the University
of Michigan studying Next Generation Transportation Systems with Professor Yafeng Yin. “It is an amazing opportunity! I am lucky that Prof. Stern let me do research with him in my sophomore year. I am very grateful.”