A team of University of Wisconsin (UW) researchers is developing a corridor along Park Street around the campus in early 2018 to test autonomous and connected vehicles.
The U.S. Department of Transportation selected Wisconsin as one of 10 “proving grounds” for autonomous vehicle technologies back in January 2017. UW’s campus is one of six regions in Wisconsin where these technologies will be tested.
The Traffic Operations and Safety (TOPS) lab, operating out of the UW Civil and Environmental Engineering department, is leading Wisconsin’s Automated Vehicle Proving Grounds. In 2018, researchers will install dedicated short-range communications radios along a northern portion of Park Street, stretching from the Beltline to University Avenue, to test both autonomous shuttles and connection technologies.
Current ambulances and police vehicles have a technology that changes traffic light priority. But the dedicated short-range communications radios are more “expansive and easier to use” than current technologies and will allow faster transit times for emergency vehicles.
Radios installed in vehicles and on traffic infrastructure will transmit data, like speed and heading, between each other every tenth of a second. The TOPS lab will use the data gained from the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications to improve safety at intersections.
The lab will develop software connecting pedestrians to moving cars once the radio technology is installed on four intersections in early 2018.
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Source: The Badger-Herald
