It’s nice to see Detroit getting busy again.
Engineers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have started construction on a simulated city center that will be used to test partially automated and fully driverless cars.
The patent-pending Mobility Transformation Facility will take up 32 acres on U-M’s north campus, and be administered by a partnership of auto industry leaders and university researchers.
The idea is to provide a real-world simulation of dense city traffic for the next generation of partially and fully automated vehicles. In addition to a section of a four-lane highway, the test center will have merge lanes, road signs, stoplights, intersections, construction barrels, roundabouts, a railroad crossing, building facades and even — eventually — mechanical cyclists and pedestrians.
