Autonomous cars may not be driving down real roads anytime soon, but with Mcity at the University of Michigan, they now have their own private small town.
MCity—a fully functional, 32-acre suburban landscape located just outside Michigan’s flagship campus in Ann Arbor—was unveiled earlier this week as it begins hosting research by the university’s Mobility Transformation Center.
“There are many challenges ahead as automated vehicles are increasingly deployed on real roadways,” says Peter Sweatman, the center’s director. “Mcity is a safe, controlled, and realistic environment where we are going to figure out how the incredible potential of connected and automated vehicles can be realized quickly, efficiently and safely.”
The site is designed to include every obstacle a driverless car could encounter while out on real roads, especially environments where a car would be challenged. A series of straight and curved roads atop different kinds of material goes past traffic signals, sidewalks, and mock construction obstacles, in addition to signs covered in graffiti and faded lane markings.
Additionally, 15 big-name companies—including auto titans like General Motors and Ford as well as those engaged in other types of business, such as Verizon—are investing $1 million and plenty of technology into the project, joining the Michigan Department of Transportation.
For its part, Verizon will be conducting research in the field of v2x communications, which look to improve the transfer of information from vehicles to pedestrians, bicycles, and each other—both in pooled research projects with the rest of the leadership circle and in tailored research.
Amit Jain, director of Corporate Strategy, IoT Verticals at Verizon, explains that this tailored research will examine specific hypotheses around vehicle-to-pedestrian communications. But because it could take nearly 40 years to put working technology on the road, Verizon will also explore a commercially viable alternative that uses smartphones instead of a car part or subsystem for this communication.
Jain adds that Verizon is looking to address the implications a future with driverless cars would have on the insurance, healthcare, and legal industries.
“As we move towards autonomous vehicles, we will encounter a host of new legal, regulatory, insurance and other issues which will require attention. Hypothetically speaking, once we reach the fully robotic automation stage—there could be no more accidents,” he tells PSFK. “New and unprecedented business models would be needed in that environment.”
Mcity
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