ATSSA The Signal Nov/Dec 2019

American Traffic Safety Services Association 20 Many universities across the coun- try are laying the groundwork for the advancement of Connected and Auto- matedVehicle (CAV) technology. As stated on their websites, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is working with Toyota to develop a joint research center; Stanford won the first Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge in 2005, one of the first CAV competitions; and The University of Michigan created a real- world simulated city. While these are all key initiatives that will ultimately propel CAV technologies, one prominent player in achieving these efforts is Carnegie Melon University (CMU). According to Stan Caldwell, exec- utive director of CMU’s Traffic21 Institute andMobility21National University Trans- portation Center, CMU is recognized by many to be the university that launched autonomous research, later placing the school as one of the leading institutions when it comes to CAV research today. “Carnegie Mellon started conducting autonomous vehicle research in 1984, so it’s kind of considered by many to be the birthplace of autonomous vehicles,” Caldwell said. “One of the first autono- mous vehicles was a robot sent in after a nuclear meltdown occurred near Harris- burg, Pennsylvania on ThreeMile Island.” According to Caldwell, the Department of Defense (DOD) became interested in autonomous vehicles and developed a series of challenges related through DARPA. In 2007, CMU won the final DARPA Urban Grand Challenge and five other teams completed the course, at which point DOD saw the technology matured to a level ready for commer- cial development. “Ever since that challenge, we have been working with companies like General Motors at research labs here on campus. Much of this research had been through the Robotics Institute here at Carnegie Mellon,” Caldwell said. “Unlike a lot of transportation centers at other univer- sities being focused on primarily on civil engineering or mechanical engineering, our researchhasbeen focusedonartificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles.” Caldwell said CMU had the first robot- ics PhD program in robotics and the first bachelor’s artificial intelligence program, which led the university to where it is today. In 2010, the Traffic21 Institute was developed and aims to capture all the work across the university related to transportation. Taking Highway Automation to School Carnegie Mellon University considered a pioneer in automation research Innovation & Technical News