(Radio Iowa) – An expert at the University of Iowa’s Driving Safety Research Institute says automated driving will work the best when the strengths of humans and automation are used together. Institute deputy director, Omar Ahmad, says tasks that are redundant are one example. “Humans are our not great at doing the same thing over and over, over a very long time period. Our minds wander, we tend to get distracted, we tend to get bored. We tend to want to do multiple things such as, for instance, use our phones to get something else done while we’re driving,” he says.

He says automation is best at these types of tasks. “Automation and sort of computers in general they are they don’t get tired, they can do the same thing over and over, and they’re not going to take a nap, and they’re not going to get bored,” Ahmad says. Humans are better at making decisions about new things they encounter. “Taking a situation that is very unique. And even a situation that perhaps you barely encounter, or that they haven’t encountered, and more or less figuring out how to deal with it. Humans are really good at that,” he says.

Automation has to rely on what has been programmed into it, so those unique situations cause problems. “Automation and computers and software is terrible at that, because it will only do what is programmed to do. And so anytime it sees a situation that has never seen before, it’s not going to know what to do,” Ahmad says. He says if you were to put the strengths of both the human and the automation together, then you have something that’s very compelling. “What we want to see is really a greater recognition of where things are working well, and where things are not working well. And then to remind everybody that look for a driverless type of solution, we’re going to need to be able to do to really deal with these very unique scenarios,” Ahmad says.

He recently completed work on a study of using of how to make an automated vehicle safely navigate on Iowa’s rural roads. Ahmad says it will take some time to work out automated travel on the country’s roadways.

(LaPlatte, NE) – An eight-year old boy from Glenwood, Iowa, died in a crash that took place last week, in Nebraska. Investigators in Sarpy County, NE., on Monday, said Paxton Parker died in a three-vehicle crash that occurred at around 8-a.m., on June 29^th. A 9-year-old passenger and the vehicle’s driver survived, but suffered serious injuries.

Authorities say Elizabeth Sprunger, of Glenwood, was driving a 2009 Hyundai Sonata westbound east of LaPlatte, NE., on Highway 34, just west of Harlan Lewis Road. She lost control of the vehicle, which crossed into the eastbound lanes, and collided with an eastbound, 2015 Dodge Ram. Sprunger’s vehicle was then struck a second time by a semi-truck.

The drivers of the pickup and the semi-truck were not injured. The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office said weather conditions at the time of the crash were “poor due to heavy rain in the area.”

(Radio Iowa) – Fundraising is underway to outfit the U-S-S Iowa submarine. The warship was christened last month and is now undergoing sea trials for the next year before it’s cleared for active service. Tom Hudson is executive director of the U-S-S Iowa’s commissioning committee.

Hudson says “…The commissioning committee is out to raise money so we can improve the mattresses in their bunks, their athletic equipment to work out, stay healthy and stay fit.” The committee has raised 300-thousand dollars so far, a little over half of that has been spent to bring officers and sailors who’ll serve on the ship to Iowa to build connections here.

The committee’s goal is to raise another 200-thousand dollars over the next several months, before the U-S-S Iowa is commissioned. In 1896, the Iowa legislature appropriated five-thousand dollars and had a Philadelphia firm design a silver service for use on the second U-S-S Iowa battleship. The set includes a punch bowl, water pitcher, coffee pot and a fruit bowl as well as silver serving spoons and forks. It was returned to the state in 1923 and then transferred to the next U-S-S Iowa battleship in 1945 for use during ceremonies.

Women have served on Navy submarines since 2010, but vessels had to be retrofitted for co-ed living. Hudson notes the U-S-S Iowa is the first Navy sub to be designed for male and female sailors and six female officers will serve on the U-S-S Iowa.

The USS Iowa (SSN 797) is a Virginia Class nuclear submarine.

It has taken eight years to build the 377 foot nuclear submarine. It weighs 78-hundred tons and will be the first U-S Navy submarine named after Iowa.