Preparing Students for Technical Careers in Autonomous Technologies for Commercial Trucks and Off-Highway Vehicles

To increase safety and reduce costs, autonomous technologies are rapidly growing in commercial trucking fleets and off-highway vehicles. Autonomous technologies require a variety of devices, including radar, lidar, video camera systems, communication systems, and differential global positioning systems. Truck service technicians need to be trained to troubleshoot, diagnose, repair, and calibrate these devices and vehicle control systems.

However, technician training programs have not kept pace with the new technologies or the increasing demand for technicians with these skills. To address these needs, this project will offer training workshops for instructors in diesel and truck technician training programs. These workshops will help instructors enhance their training programs to include the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for maintaining autonomous technologies in vehicles.

The project is led by the Minnesota State Transportation Center of Excellence, a consortium of public post-secondary colleges with transportation programs. The project will provide consortium members with shared access to vehicles with autonomous technologies. These vehicles will be used for the new training programs, as well as outreach.

This project intends to prepare students for technical careers in a growing field that requires new skills and understanding of autonomous technologies for vehicles.

The Minnesota State Transportation Center of Excellence serves as a resource hub for autonomous technologies in transportation, providing curriculum resources and subject matter experts for secondary and post-secondary educators. The goal of this project is to advance the knowledge of autonomous technologies in truck service technician programs and, thus, address the growing need for qualified, knowledgeable technicians with the ability to maintain and repair these technologies.

To do so, the project will: (1) develop awareness of career opportunities and advances in autonomous technologies for secondary students, transitional workers, and veterans; (2) enhance existing technician programs through professional development for educators and curriculum development; and (3) support the technician training community with shared resources that will include a set of vehicles equipped with the latest autonomous technologies. Using faculty and student surveys, focus groups, and interviews, the project will assess the impact of career awareness activities on students, the impact of the professional development workshops on faculty, and the impact of the new training equipment on students and faculty.

The project outcomes will be disseminated through national conferences and professional transportation-related associations. Educational resources developed during this project will be made available to the public through the center’s website. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.