Lawrence Tech Shows Off Autonomous Vehicle Expertise

BY MATT ROUSH

Lawrence Technological University (LTU) is the three-time reigning champion of a global collegiate competition for autonomous vehicles. So it’s no surprise that the North American International Auto Show picked LTU, along with a Russian technology company and a Korean auto parts company, to create an autonomous taxi service for the auto show.

A team of LTU students, led by computer science professor C.J. Chung, was tabbed to participate in the deployment of 10 four-passenger autonomous taxes, which will ferry show-goers from Detroit’s TCF Center to downtown Detroit hotels.

The autonomous taxi fleet was to have been part of NAIAS 2020, which was moved from January to June to take advantage of Detroit’s delightful late-spring weather vs. winter’s cold and snow.

But the global coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 show in June. So, Chung said, the project has been moved to the 2021 auto show.

LTU’s partners in the effort are Hyundai Mobis, the parts and service arm of the Korean automaker, and the Russian technology company Yandex. The vehicles will be programmed to take passengers to their destinations, although there will be a driver to take control if needed.

The Yandex-Mobis-LTU collaboration was one of five corporate mobility challenge projects announced by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer last October.

“We’ll be evaluating the on-demand riding service through a mobile app and testing their vehicles, collecting data, and writing a report on the vehicles and the service,” Chung said.

Sponsored by Mobis, Chung and his students have been working for more than three years on autonomous vehicle software—code that is now integrated into an autonomous two-passenger electric vehicle that is regularly seen in testing around LTU’s Southfield campus.

Chung said the taxis would follow predetermined routes from the auto show at TCF Center to and from downtown Detroit hotels and entertainment venues. “Mobis is excited for this opportunity to expand our collaboration with

LTU, Professor Chung, and his students. The Mobility Challenge is the perfect venue to work together to demonstrate the exceptional capabilities of Yandex’s autonomous taxi system in the demanding NAIAS environment,” said Doug MacKenzie, senior manager of Autonomous Vehicle Advanced Engineering at Mobis North America.

“Building and deploying 10 of our world-class self-driving cars for the Detroit Auto show is an exciting opportunity to advance our tech in one of the world’s leading automotive hubs,” said Preston Carey, senior vice president of international business development at Yandex. “We look forward to collaborating with Hyundai Mobis and Professor Chung and his students at Lawrence Tech, an institution that has contributed invaluable knowledge to the automotive industry in Michigan for decades. Yandex has a deep commitment to supporting education through our work with universities, and we’re excited to be working with the team at LTU.”

The governor’s NAIAS 2020 Michigan Mobility Challenge was announced in May at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference. The challenge required each mobility project to have an academic partner. The challenge is being managed by the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s mobility unit, PlanetM.

LTU has been researching autonomous vehicles since 2003, participating in the global Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition, held each June on Oakland University’s Rochester campus. LTU is a three-time champion in the IGVC Spec 2 or Self-Drive competition for full-size autonomous vehicles, using a Polaris GEM e2 two-seat electric vehicle donated by Hyundai Mobis. Also contributing to the effort have been Dataspeed Inc., a Rochester Hills engineering firm working in mobile robotics and autonomous vehicle technology; Soar Technology Inc., an Ann Arbor autonomy technology developer; Realtime Technologies Inc., an Ann Arbor simulation technology firm; DENSO North America, the Southfield-based division of the Japanese auto parts firm; and Veoneer, a spinoff of the Swedish auto supplier Autoliv. LTU’s Self-Drive projects have also been funded by U.S. Army GVSC since 2018 through Great Lakes Systems & Technology LLC (GLS&T).

The IGVC was established in 1993 by the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC, formerly known as TARDEC) and the Association for

Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).

Lawrence Technological University students participated in the global Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC), held each June on Oakland University’s Rochester campus. LTU is a three-time champion in the IGVC Spec 2 competition for full-size autonomous vehicles.