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ITS Minnesota Fall Forum Awards Scholarship to UGPTI Graduate Research AssistantPosted: Nov 20, 2019
The $1,000 award recognizes Bhardwaj's interest in intelligent transportation systems, her academic achievements, and the presentation of her research at the 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers-International Conference on Transportation and Development and subsequent publication in the conference proceedings. Bhardwaj is a software engineering Ph.D. student at NDSU. She is the first student from NDSU to be awarded a scholarship from the Forum. ITS Minnesota includes individuals and local, regional, and national organizations interested in the development of Minnesota's ITS Industry. Bhardwaj's paper, "Railroad Track Irregularities Position Accuracy Assessments Using Low-Cost Sensors on a Hi-Rail Vehicle," describes research to investigate the potential use of low-cost sensors aboard rail vehicles to automatically and continuously monitor for inertial events caused by irregular track geometry. The research introduces a signal processing and statistical method to dramatically improve the ability to estimate the location of potential track irregularities. The method may help railroads detect rail problems early and provide better focus on inspection and repair efforts. The paper's co-authors were R. Bridgelall, assistant professor of transportation and logistics at NDSU; Pan Lu, associate professor of transportation and logistics at NDSU; and N. Dhingra, NDSU transportation and logistics Ph.D. student. Bridgelall and Lu are researchers with NDSU's Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, and Dhingra is a graduate research assistant at the institute. |
NDSU scholarship winner Bhavana Bhardwaj (left) is pictured with Jacob Folkeringa, awards committee chair, SRF Consulting, Ali Nahvi, Iowa State University scholarship recipient, and James McCarty, FHWA awards committee member