Toyota plans to deploy a fleet of autonomous vehicles for testing as part of the Ann Arbor Connected Vehicle Test Environment (AACVTE) initiative in Michigan, USA.
The initiative, established in cooperation with the University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center, is a real-world implementation of connected vehicle safety technologies being used by everyday drivers in Ann Arbor and around southeast Michigan. AACVTE will build on existing model deployment in Ann Arbor, including an upgraded and expanded test environment, making it the standard for a nationwide implementation.
Toyota plans to invite team members and their families to participate in the AACVTE initiative. They will be asked to equip their vehicles with devices to support accelerated research and deployment of advanced vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V)/vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) systems in the region. The goal is to deploy 5,000 vehicles with vehicle awareness devices throughout the Ann Arbor area.
The vehicle awareness device to be installed on participating vehicles is a small box, hidden out of sight in the vehicle’s trunk or rear area, with two small antennas – one on or near the rear windshield and another either on the trunk lid or the vehicle’s roof.
The device continuously transmits speed and position data from the participating vehicle to other, similarly equipped vehicles and into the surrounding environment where this information can be recognized by research equipment located along the roadside and at intersections. The information transmission in this study occurs during the participant’s usual everyday driving.
April 19, 2016