Aleta M. Dyling Automotive Engineer & ADAS Expert

Provide technical investigations, crashworthiness, engineering, and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) performance analysis.

Motor Vehicle Design, Development, and Testing – from requirements to concept development, through final validation of complete vehicles, including mass production manufacturing. Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) for products & process, ADVP&R development, including component, system, and software validation. Test method, procedure design, test case development, and validation plan build and execution. Testing pre-production and production vehicles against requirements including Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS), internal due care requirements, and consumer metric evaluations and ratings.

Motor Vehicle System Design, Development, and Testing – Sensor expertise including front cameras, long range radar, short range radar, rear view cameras, surround view cameras, ultrasonic sensors. ADAS expertise including Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), Front Collision Warning (FCW), Lane Keep Assist (LKA), Lane Centering, Side Blind Zone Alert (SBZA), Lane Change Warning (LCW), Lane Change Assist (LCA), Cyclist Alert, Rear Cross Traffic Braking (RCTB), Rear Virtual Bumper (RVB), Supercruise. Crashworthiness system expertise including side impact and frontal impact; seats, interiors, airbags, seat belts, Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH), electrical integrity, body structures, pedestrian protection, and fuel system integrity. Anthropomorphic Test Device (ATD) design, development, and calibration.

Motor Vehicle Failures – ADAS, structural, air bag, seat belt, seat retention, crash beams, head impact, roof crush, door retention, fuel system, electrical system, active pedestrian protection, functional safety in electronic systems.

Motor Vehicle Repair – diagnosis and/or repair of ADAS and sensing systems, ECU flashing and calibration, Over-The-Air updates, airbag and restraint systems, conventional and anti-lock brake systems, electrical, interior/exterior components and systems, interaction of dealers and manufacturers, and safety recall repairs. Proper use of service repair tools and equipment, repair procedures and shop operations.

Manufacturing Process and Equipment – Sensor alignment, Electrostatic Discharge protection; sensor installation, adhesion, and mounting; molding; interior trim; assembly; torque verification means and methods; fit and finish control; statistical process control (SPC); mistake and error proofing, poke-yoke; kaizen activities; operator protection means and methods; and operator ergonomics.

Vehicle Accident Reconstruction – inspection of damaged vehicle and components. Site inspection. Review of police report, witness statements, scene photos and other documents. Computational recreation of the accident using facts and scientifically accepted methodology to determine how the accident occurred, including elements within the accident. All to determine cause(s) of the accident and the resulting severity.

Professional Experience

Provide technical investigations, analysis, reports, and testimony toward the resolution of commercial and personal injury litigation involving vehicle collisions, vehicle crashworthiness and engineering issues, ADAS, sensor, and software defects and malfunctions, and vehicle repair issues for passenger cars, light trucks, SUVs and medium trucks.

• Led application and software validation engineering team for radar for passenger car and light truck ADAS applications
• Used custom visualization software to analyze raw target returns and point-cloud data for target identification and classification
• Delivered calibration and software across a broad spectrum of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems in vehicle, meeting Functional Safety and internal performance requirements, in addition to FMVSS and Consumer Metrics.
• Developed virtual environments and automated validation solutions to reduce hardware dependency
• Developed new to market technologies including advanced solutions for SAE Level 3+ Autonomous driving

Propulsion Controls Validation, Engineering Group Manager 2022-2023

• Responsible for system validation for propulsion software and hardware including component and System HiL testing, and functional safety testing and approval for internal combustion and electric vehicle programs.
• Adapted standard validation concepts and processes for controller software space leveraging SAFe Agile methodology for validation of propulsion software and hardware.
• Ensured controller hardware and software meet component and system requirements (Electromagnetic Compatibility, Cybersecurity, Environmental, etc.).

ADAS Validation, Program Lead Engineer  2020-2022

• Assessed future Cadillac CT4 and CT5 program ADAS technology including new perception capability, sensor and software updates; plan and execute validation to internal performance specifications, regulatory (FMVSS 111), and consumer metric targets (NCAP, IIHS).
• Developed and executed ADVP&R Plans to validate all ADAS technology including AEB, Lane Keep Assist, Side Blind Zone Warning, Rear Vision, Supercruise, etc. Validation plans encompassing new sensor modules, software, and calibration sets. Methods included vehicle test, CAE (dynamic models), and analysis.

ADAS Lead Validation Engineer - Automatic Emergency Braking  2018-2020

• Conducted automatic emergency braking testing for all GM vehicle programs with AEB, including front impact warning and mitigation, pedestrian protection, and rear impact mitigation testing.
• Utilized moving pedestrian and cyclist tools, soft target vehicle surrogates, driving robots, and GPS location systems to automate full vehicle level crash avoidance testing
• Utilized CAN messaging tools to troubleshoot and update module software and calibrations real time. Collaborated with cross-functional teams including suppliers, design engineers, and performance owners to address issues with software, calibrations and sensor limitations.

Vehicle Safety Lab, Group Leader- Full Vehicle Crash Test Operations  2015-2018

• Led a team of over 20 technicians preparing and instrumenting vehicles for crash and rollover tests, components for sled testing, and post-test teardown. Drove compliance to ISO17025 (Lab Quality and Reliability) Certification. Utilized General Motors’ Global Manufacturing System methods for operational efficiency.

Vehicle Safety and Crashworthiness, Occupant Performance Engineer  2008-2015

• Evaluated crash performance relative to FMVSS compliance, consumer metric, and internal performance requirements for Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, Chevy Tahoe & Suburban, and GMC Yukon. Supported third party consumer metric testing (IIHS, US NCAP).
• Developed improved structure, restraint, and airbag designs to achieve 5-star safety performance for Front and Side US NCAP for new NCAP test procedures for full size truck platform.
• Performed and analyzed vehicle crash testing including frontal, front offset and overlap, side pole, oblique pole, side moving deformable barrier, rear MDB, and rollover test conditions.
• Conducted sled testing for front and rear occupant safety performance, including child and large occupant restraints and airbag and deployment timing tuning.
• Conducted out of position (static deployment) evaluation for driver, passenger, side, and roof-rail airbags.

Crash Test Dummy Project Engineer 2001-2008

• Conducted ATD (Anthropomorphic Test Device - Crash dummies) component testing for biofidelic response verification
• Developed new ATD designs via the Occupant Safety and Research Partnership of US Council for Automotive Research: SIDII-s, ES-2, ES-2re, BioRID-II, WorldSID 50th and 5th, THOR
• Evaluated ATD designs against biofidelic targets using sled, component, and vehicle testing.

Professional Credentials

• Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician with SafeKids Worldwide, expired, (2011–2021)
• DFSS Black Belt 2015
• DFSS Green Belt 2008
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Agilist, expired, (2022)

Education

M.S., Biomedical Engineering, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan

B.S., Engineering (Mechanical Engineering), Summa Cum Laude, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Continuing Education

• ISO26262 Functional Safety Best Practices, Forvia, 2025
• Scaled Agile Framework Training, General Motors Corporation, 2022
• Advanced Driver’s Training, General Motors Corporation, 2019
• Child Passenger Safety, Safekids Michigan, 2011-2021
• High Voltage Electrical Vehicle Safety, General Motors Corporation, 2016-2018
• Lockout Training, General Motors Corporation, 2000, 2015, 2017
• Global Manufacturing Systems (GMS) for Operations, General Motors Corporation, 2015
• Design for Six Sigma, General Motors Corporation, 2008, 2015
• LSDyna Finite Element Analysis, General Motors Corporation, 2008
• Unigraphics CAE Modeling, General Motors Corporation, 2001

Professional Memberships

• Automotive Women’s Alliance Foundation
• Society of Automotive Engineers
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Publications

Aleta Sutterfield, Katie Pecoraro, Stephen W Rouhana, Lan Xu, Joe Abramczyk, Jeff Berliner, Annette Irwin, Jack Jensen, Harold J Mertz, Guy Nusholtz, Hollie Pietsch, Risa Scherer, Suzanne Tylko “Evaluation of the ES-2re Dummy in Biofidelity, Component, and Full Vehicle Crash Tests,” Stapp Car Crash Journal, 2005

Annette L Irwin, Aleta Sutterfield, Timothy P Hsu, Agnes Kim, Harold J Mertz, Stephen W Rouhana, Risa Scherer “Side Impact Response Corridors for the Rigid Flat-Wall and Offset-Wall Side Impact Tests of NHTSA Using the ISO Method of Corridor Development”, Stapp Car Crash Journal, 2005

A. Kim, K. F. Anderson, J. Berliner, J. Hassan, J. Jensen, H. Mertz, H. Pietsch, A. Rao, R. Scherer, A. Sutterfield “A Biofidelity Evaluation of the BioRID II, Hybrid III, and RID2 for use in Rear Impacts”, Stapp Car Crash Journal, 2003

Katie Byrnes, Joseph Abramczyk, Jeff Berliner, Annette Irwin, Jack Jensen, Murthy Kowsika, Harold J Mertz, Stephen W Rouhana, Risa Scherer, Yibing Shi, Aleta Sutterfield, Lan Xu, Suzanne Tylko, Dainius Dalmotas “ES-2 Dummy Biomechanical Responses”, Stapp Car Crash Journal, 2002

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