MITRE and Mcity Collaborate to Accelerate Connected and Automated Vehicle Technologies

McLean, Va., & Bedford, Mass., Oct. 8, 2024—MITRE and Mcity announced their partnership to accelerate deployment of safe and effective technologies to improve mobility. MITRE’s expertise, including in simulation and modeling and complex transportation systems, will contribute to Mcity’s interdisciplinary mobility research.

Among other work, MITRE and Mcity will:

• Collaborate to connect mature and innovative research conducted at Mcity to real-world applications and needs.
• Accelerate the development and use of advanced digital engineering and simulation for connected and automated vehicle safety assurance in real-world environments, including MITRE’s Digital Proving Ground, using NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud Sensor RTX APIs.
• Enhance the USDOT Virtual Open Innovation Collaborative Environment for Safety (VOICES) capability, operated by MITRE, with new simulation components and additional researchers.

MITRE’s work in ground transportation safety is accelerating technological advancements and maximizing the benefits these technologies can bring.

MITRE’s Digital Proving Ground platform and Mcity will bring together the latest in simulation technology to enable industry-wide validation of autonomous vehicles (AV). This joint platform will use NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud Sensor RTX APIs, which deliver physically accurate sensor simulation to generate labeled camera, radar, lidar, and ultrasonic sensor data for AV training and testing.

Mcity simulation tools are also being tapped for a new project under development in partnership with MITRE and NVIDIA. The partners will collaborate to create a correlated, full simulation version of Mcity that industry and academic researchers can use to rigorously test and validate AVs, accelerating their development and adoption. The partnership was announced today at the NVIDIA AI Summit in Washington, DC.

“Collaboration with key stakeholders and innovators will be key to making sure future transportation systems and automated vehicles serve the public’s needs,” said Joseph Kolly, director of the Integrated Systems Innovation Center at MITRE. “By combining Mcity’s foundational research with MITRE’s focus on operational transition and complex systems-of-systems deployments, we are poised to make significant strides in enhancing transportation safety and efficiency.”

Mcity is an interdisciplinary private-public partnership, bringing together industry, government, and academia to advance transportation safety, sustainability, equity, and accessibility for the benefit of society.

“As Mcity’s first non-profit partner, MITRE brings tremendous expertise and resources to our mission of transforming mobility for society’s benefit,” said Mcity director Henry Liu. “By leveraging MITRE’s advanced labs and technologies, this partnership will enhance our research capabilities, allowing us to transform early-stage research prototypes into full-fledged operational systems. Together, we’ll accelerate innovations like the Mcity Safety Assessment Program—a driver’s test for autonomous vehicles—and help make meaningful improvements to America’s transportation system.”

About MITRE

MITRE’s mission-driven teams are dedicated to solving problems for a safer world. Through our public-private partnerships and federally funded R&D centers, we work across government and in partnership with industry to tackle challenges to the safety, stability, and well-being of our nation. Learn more at mitre.org.

About Mcity

Mcity at the University of Michigan is a makerspace for mobility innovation. Home to world-renowned researchers, a one-of-a-kind test facility and AI-powered data capabilities, we bring together industry, government, and academia from across disciplines to advance transportation safety, sustainability, equity, and accessibility.

Media Contact: Jordan Graham, media@mitre.org