Mcity is located at Michigan and spread in an area spanning 32 acre. Mcity, the faux metropolis is now known as University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center. The entire city has been developed specifically for the purpose of testing self-driving automobiles and connected technology.
The city was officially open for automobile manufacturers from the July, and it resembles a real city with miles of 2, 3, and 4 lane roads with intersections, traffic signals, and lights. There are fake stores and houses on the side with dummies and sign boards on the road sides.
Ford Tech
Ford is planning to roll a fully working driver-less car in 5 years ready for customers to drive in the city. Ford is using several technologies like radar, 4 lidars sensors, and multiple cameras with sensors, real time 3d mapping and laser to help car gather as much information about its surroundings as possible. This will help the automobile navigate around the city. The Mcity has fake walls with bricks, concrete, and dirt to test obstacles and off road scenarios. Other things include tunnel, bridge, traffic circles, exit ramps, and even mechanical pedestrians on the sidewalk.
"Every mile driven [at Mcity] represents 10, 100 or 1,000 miles of on-road driving in terms of our ability to pack in the occurrences of difficult events," said U of M professor Ryan Eustice.
Ryan Eustice has been working with Ford on this project since 2006; he says that Mcity allows them to be extremely "evil" while testing the car. The facility can also be used by faculty members, students, suppliers, and other automobile partners to help develop autonomous driving technology.
Mcity is a joint project that has been started by University of Michigan, Michigan Department of Transportation, and 15 other automobile manufacturers including Ford. Testing self-driving cars in this fake city provides a safe environment to test different real life scenarios that would be otherwise difficult to conduct.
Simulations and Scenarios
Ford says that they are running different scenarios that represent real life situations like cars running red lights, accidents, speeding, and more. The idea is to test different scenarios and feed the data into the system so that preventive measures could be developed in advance. Ford cars already come equipped with parking assist facility like self-parking; the company is now working to make the car completely driverless.
Soon you will be able to read that article you have not had time to read, take an extra nap (or your only nap!), perform some more social media work, spend more time on your spreadsheets, and so on.
Self-driving cars will make millions of lives better by saving thousands of man hours that is otherwise spent behind the wheel, stuck in traffic (trying not to become Michael Douglass in Falling Down!), and during parking. This is the first time Ford has revealed some information about its ambitious project, however they are yet to make any official announcement on when they are going to launch the commercial version of their driver-less car, but industry experts are saying to expect it in about 5 years.
Ford had once said that they are expecting their cars to become fully autonomous in about 15 years and they never needed a bailout! Ford happens to be the first automobile company to test the self-driving concept car in the high tech artificial city in Michigan. It would be interesting to see the outcome of all these efforts in the coming years.