A group of transportation companies have designed and built a technology based ‘city’ north of Ann Arbor MI. The goal is to have a testing ground for driverless and connected cars. The sponsors include: Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Delphi, Denso, Bosch, Xerox, Verizon and Qualcomm. Plus the University of Michigan. We have the story ‘trending’ at parknews.biz. Go there for the details.
The site includes just about everything possible a vehicle might run into in an urban or suburban environment including railroad crossings, tons of street signs, crosswalks, parking spaces on and off street, parallel and angle, alleys, traffic lights and signs, tunnels, bridges, and the rest. Many of the buildings are like movie sets, but it serves its purpose.
Its interesting that anti trust laws prevented this type of teamwork. Auto executives were even afraid to play golf together. The department of justice kept an evil eye on such meetings. Its a relief that the concerns seem to have lifted and now these companies can work together as is necessary if any of this technology is to work.
This project is a big deal if you are interested in smart city, connected cars, self drive vehicles, and the like. We need to track this to see what comes of it.
JVH
