Mcity gives green light to remote autonomous vehicle testing, calls for federal standards

Detroit is known as Motor City, the unofficial capital of the automotive world. This week, the Mcity hub for vehicle testing began welcoming researchers to use its physical and virtual testing environment.

The University of Michigan (U-M) invited researchers in connected and autonomous vehicle (AV) technologies from around the U.S. In addition, Mcity’s leadership called for federal standards for safety testing, arguing that the lack of clear goals is hampering development. 

Following two years of upgrades, the research facility officially kicked off its remote program with a series of demonstrations for industry, as well as state and federal government officials. By allowing outside researchers to remotely access Mcity’s research vehicles and testing technologies, U-M said it seeks to accelerate the development of AVs.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), 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, 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,” he continued. “This could help put more refined, safer AVs on our roads sooner.”

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Mcity announces partnership at NVIDIA AI Summit

Also this week, Mcity announced a partnership to advance its remote-testing capabilities for industrial and academic users at the NVIDIA AI Summit in Washington, D.C. It is working with NVIDIA and nonprofit research management firm The MITRE Corp. on simulation tools for the project.

The team’s goal is a full simulation version of Mcity that researchers can use to rigorously test and validate AVs, accelerating their development and adoption.

In the coming year, Mcity plans to assist 10 research teams from academic institutions in the U.S. with their testing needs. Researchers can submit proposals now.

By connecting to Mcity’s cloud-based digital infrastructure, researchers operating from their locations can test their autonomous algorithms in virtual and mixed-reality environments. Using 5G wireless communications, they can control physical vehicles and traffic signals on Mcity’s test streets, and receive real-time data in return—all while protecting proprietary information.

“We invite researchers from across the country to connect with us and join the effort to accelerate developing and deploying connected and autonomous vehicles that will make transportation safer, cleaner, and more accessible,” said Karen Thole, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering at U-M. “Please add your brain power to advancing tomorrow’s technologies.”

U-M calls on regulators to tackle AV standards

While Mcity s working to accelerate autonomous vehicle R&D, U-M researchers see federal leadership—in the form of testing standards and funding—as crucial to keeping it on track. It posed the following questions:

• How should AVs be tested and evaluated? How safe is safe enough?
• How do we properly prepare our infrastructure to support AV technologies?
• How should AVs be licensed?
• How should AVs be insured?

“Typically, regulation follows innovation,” Liu said. “With AVs, however, the lack of a federal safety testing framework has created uncertainty that is thwarting innovation and delaying the adoption of technologies that we know can save lives and improve the quality of life for millions of people who do not have reliable access to transportation.”

Mcity has developed a two-part methodology for evaluating AV safety, called the Mcity Safety Assessment Program. The first component tests driving algorithms’ basic competency in ordinary traffic scenarios.

The second component challenges the software with a diverse set of dangerous driving scenarios—representing those that most often result in crashes, injuries, and fatalities.

Opened in 2015, Mcity was the world’s first proving ground designed for connected and automated vehicles. In 2022, a $5.1 million grant from the NSF helped U-M develop the facility’s digital infrastructure — leading to Mcity 2.0.