MCITY EXISTS TO MAKE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES LESS SCARY

THE RESEARCH BODY IS DEVELOPING TESTING PROTOCOLS IN ORDER TO WIN PUBLIC TRUST AND REDUCE CONCERNS ABOUT RIDING IN AVS

- ALISA PRIDDLE

In 2037 when we hop into an autonomous shuttle, our biggest concern is whether our favorite seat is open. The notion this isn’t a safe way to travel never enters our mind. After generations of integrating ever more artificial intelligence into their neural nets, these computers on wheels read their surroundings flawlessly. They react to anything in nanoseconds, and the tech is so advanced that a crash is almost inconceivable.

That’s the possible future the Mcity team has been helping lay the groundwork for. Part of the University of Michigan, the transportation research body is bringing together industry, government, and academia in an effort to help ensure autonomous vehicles (AVs) are proven safe before they make the move to public roads.

The world’s major automakers are working furiously and spending billions to bring autonomous technology to market. Research facilities like Mcity help do that by accumulating and sharing data and developing future testing protocols.

But like any new technological frontier, today’s guidelines still vary and are open to interpretation, which has led to some high-profile incidents.

In 2018, a pedestrian in Arizona was hit and killed by an Uber vehicle that was testing autonomous technology, the first such incident of its kind. Then there’s Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has pushed boundaries with Tesla’s Autopilot handsfree advanced driver assistance and “full self-driving” systems. Some drivers have taken Autopilot far too literally and abdicated driving responsibilities when they shouldn’t. People have died.