Gearing up for future transportation, Georgia Tech, Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners and Delta Air Lines are now partners in autonomous vehicle and infrastructure research.
Curiosity Lab is a 5G enabled autonomous vehicle and smart city living laboratory located in Peachtree Corners, Ga. a northern suburb of Atlanta.
“Our 5G-enabled living laboratory will give Georgia Tech researchers the opportunity to push the frontier of emerging technology in a real-world setting that is almost impossible to replicate in a closed lab,” said Betsy Plattenburg, executive director of Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners.
Researchers will have access to the Lab’s one-and-a-half-mile autonomous vehicle test track and living laboratory. Curiosity Lab features dedicated fiber, smart poles and a network operations center for researchers to track and trend data from connected internet-of-things (IoT) devices. Additional infrastructure includes a network operations center, smart poles, DSRC units, dedicated fiber and a 25,000 square foot tech incubator.
Developing an infrastructure to enable Georgia to become a “smart” city is something that Georgia Tech has been working.
In June of 2019, four cities joined the Georgia Smart Communities Challenge. “One of the things we want to do through this program is help connect the expertise and technologies that exist at Georgia Tech with communities all across the state,” said G.P. “Bud” Peterson, president of Georgia Tech, in his remarks, as reported by govtech.com
“This is a wonderful example of industry-university-local government coming together to advance innovative solutions to the built environment and mobility,” said Debra Lam, managing director for smart cities and inclusive innovation at Georgia Tech.
Delta sees wide-ranging opportunities of this technology. “Autonomous vehicle technology is one of those innovations we see as having the potential to improve employee safety, the customer experience and operational performance, and this partnership will help us explore all of those possibilities,” said Gil West, Delta’s Chief Operating Officer, in a statement.
As autonomous vehicle research advances across the world, Delta sees potential applications for autonomous cars, trucks or buses at airports and beyond. For example, autonomous vehicles could help customers make tight connections across an airport, they could deliver delayed baggage to customers or transport aircraft parts to airports.