Throughout 2021, VSI Labs will launch quarterly long-distance drives from their Minneapolis HQ. Their team will test various routes within the United States. Their destination being The American Center for Mobility (ACM) in Southeast Michigan. VSI Labs is an ADAS and automated driving and research firm, founded in 2014 by Phil Magney. They provide technical and applied research on hardware, software, and connectivity systems needed to support advanced safety and automated driving systems. VSI kicked off their first drive on March 25th. Their route through Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula provided diverse landscapes for data collection.
The VSI engineers monitoring the drive, Mayura Guarathne and Anas Al Badi, arrived safely at The American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti. ACM is a culmination of efforts from government, industry, and various academic organizations. ACM is focused on accelerating the mobility industry through research, testing, standards development, and educational workforce programming. The campus hosts over 500 acres and offers a smart mobility test center. The facility provides multiple road systems and customizable test environments, examples being their 700ft tunnel and urban canyon. ACM also offers testing support equipment and vehicle garages.
As part of Destination ACM, VSI Labs hosted an open-house style event in one of ACM’s on-site garages. Displayed at the event were two Dataspeed By-Wire and intelligent Power Distribution System equipped vehicles. The first was used as the test vehicle for the autonomous Destination ACM drive. The second, VSI recently acquired to further their quarterly long distance drive testing. The Dataspeed team has a longstanding relationship with VSI Labs. “Dataspeed tech is the foundation to all of our AV/ADAS application testing,” says Katelyn Magney, Marketing Communications Manager with VSI Labs. The Dataspeed Drive-by-wire technology is an essential foundation to the development of autonomous vehicle technology by providing a link between the software stack and the vehicle actuators that control the vehicle. “Without them, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do! Now that we have another Dataspeed vehicle, we will be able to expand our testing even more with new partners,” says Katelyn.
Other VSI Labs partners were involved in the event. Among them, AVL Powertrain Engineering, Inc. who showcased their Dynamic Ground Truth. A rooftop device for passenger vehicles that is equipped with high resolution sensors for recording raw data in a 360-degree view of the vehicle. This data when processed with AVL software creates an accurate ground truth reference for tuning perception algorithms and evaluating the performance of on-board sensors. The software can then generate real world scenarios for simulation. Another vendor at the event was Bright Way Vision, an Israeli based technology company. Through VSI Labs, Bright Way Vision presented their CMOS-based all-weather camera system. For those who could not attend the event, a live online vehicle feed was available, broadcasting via VSI’s telemetry visualizer – a full sensor broadcast with telemetry data, classifications, and free space detections based on precise positioning, lidar, radar, and cameras.
With the first Destination ACM successfully in the rearview, VSI Labs is looking ahead to three more scheduled drives taking place in June, September and November of this year. VSI will continue working with companies to support their development of AV/ADAS technology and expand their data services throughout 2021.
For more information on VSI Labs visit: https://vsi-labs.com/
For more information on The American Center for Mobility visit: https://acmwillowrun.org.
