Mcity opens for remote testing of autonomous vehicle technologies, calls for federal standards
The opening coincides with a new industry partnership project announced at the NVIDIA AI Summit.
As Mcity begins welcoming researchers in autonomous and connected vehicle technologies from around the U.S. to be remote users of its physical and virtual testing environment, its leadership is calling for federal standards for safety testing, arguing that the lack of clear goalposts is hampering development.
Following two years of upgrades, the University of Michigan’s hub for autonomous testing officially kicked off its remote program with a series of demonstrations for industry and state and federal government officials. By allowing outside researchers to tap into Mcity research vehicles and testing technologies from afar, U-M seeks to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicle (AV) technologies to enable safer and more efficient transportation. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the capabilities are initially available to academic researchers.
“This is particularly valuable for academic institutions, including many that serve minority students, that do not have the resources of large, public institutions like U-M,” said Henry Liu, a U-M professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of both Mcity and the Center for Connected and Automated Transportation. “We call it Mcity 2.0—the next generation automated vehicle test facility.
“We believe Mcity 2.0’s capabilities will expand the volume and increase the speed of AV research that will be conducted and published. This could help put more refined, safer AVs on our roads sooner.”
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