Military tests technology to let vehicles communicate

CAPAC - The home of the automobile industry is moving toward what state officials are calling the mobility business.

As in moving people and things from place to place.

"We're not resting on our laurels," said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder during a news conference Thursday along Interstate 69 near Capac. "This is something we are going to literally stay on the gas to make sure we're a leader in mobility, and to do it right here is so exciting."

One of the latest strides in moving people and things came to a remote western corner of rural St. Clair County on Thursday. The state Department of Transportation and the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering partnered to test highway communications technology along I-69 in St. Clair and Lapeer counties.

Thursday's event included Snyder, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, TARDEC Director Paul Rogers and Kirk Steudle, director of MDOT, along with other state and local officials.

Dan Casey, executive director of the Economic Development Alliance of St. Clair County, said the immediate benefit of events such as Thursday's test is the spotlight they put on the county.

"I think this event provides an opportunity to see the future kind of unfolding right in front of us," he said. "This is a chance to provide some exposure to our area nationally with what TARDEC is doing with the testing of autonomous technology.

"This helps to put us on the map."

A convoy of four vehicles, each with the ability to talk to each other and to talk to radio infrastructure along I-69, traveled a route from Capac to Imlay City. The trucks all had drivers who were in control, but the goal of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication eventually is to have one driver being able to pilot a convoy of vehicles — like a high-tech version of Follow The Leader.

Karl Heimer, a technical adviser for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, specializes in cybersecurity for the automotive and defense sectors. He said having one driver in control of a convoy is a concept called platooning.

"It's been under research four or five years in Europe," he said. "This is pretty interesting that it's an active roadway. It's a groundbreaking experiment here in the U.S."

He said he believes the initial application of the technology will be for fleet or convoy operations — but the technology could move quickly to private vehicles.

"I think in a decade or so we will have cars that can join convoys or can form convoys of their own," he said.

Such technology, he said, conceivably could allow people to do things during commutes and longer trips that presently they would do only on a train or a bus — such as review a file or work on a computer.

"It's not going to be too many years before you can look away and do other activities," he said.

While that might seem the stuff of science fiction, Heimer said it is becoming science reality "at an ever-increasing rate. I would look for this to become science reality within a decade."

Kevin Kerrigan, MEDC senior adviser for automotive initiatives, said Thursday's demonstration was "one of the first times we've seen an actual demonstration of this type of technology in the state, in the country."

He said it has the potential to change how people drive: "You wouldn't need traffic signals, you wouldn't need lane markings."

Steudle, in his remarks, said 980 people died in traffic accidents in Michigan in 2015. Research at the University of Michigan, he said, shows that new intelligent vehicle and roadway technology could eliminate as many as 80 percent of those crashes.

"At the end of the day, that's what's important to the Department of Transportation — safety," he said.

Rep. Dan Lauwers, R-Brockway Township, said events such as Thursday's demonstration and the week of testing that preceded it "brings attention to our district and to our county."

He said he would like to have a vehicle that would handle the driving during his trips along along I-69 to the capitol.

"When I'm driving back and forth to Lansing, two hours each way, after a late session, it would be great to tell the car to take me home," he said.

Contact Bob Gross at (810) 989-6263 or rgross@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobertGRoss477

Quick Facts

• TARDEC's automated driving program, Autonomous Mobility Applique System, has a number of options from driver warning and driver assist to fully autonomous operation. Thursday's event was not a test of the AMAS technology, but rather of the Direct Short-Range Communication radios that support the system.
• The DSRC technology allows exchange of information among vehicles and between the highway and the vehicles. This allows vehicle tracking and cooperation among vehicles.