Driverless Testing in Massachusetts ‘in a Few Weeks’
Burney Simpson
Massachusetts may soon be testing autonomous vehicle technology at an 80-acre site about an hour’s drive from Boston.
Devens, a 4,400 acre former army base, is being marketed as a driverless test site by MassDevelopment, the state’s economic development and finance agency, according to reports. Military housing has been demolished on parts of the site but it has electric, water, and sewer infrastructure.
Thatcher Kezer, SVP with MassDevelopment, says there is strong interest in testing at the site by several autonomous vehicle technology firms and organizations with operations in Massachusetts.
“Within the next few weeks, they’ll be testing,” Kezer told the Boston Herald this week.
Four firms, including one that would test a car and a second that will review driverless sensors, are ready to sign contracts, said Kezer who declined to share company names.
A FAVORABLE TESTING ENVVIRONMENT
Devens might attract Cambridge-based nuTonomy, a developer of autonomous vehicle software and algorithms. NuTonomy plans to begin on-road testing of a driverless taxi system this year in Singapore’s One North business district.
That city-state has “a more favorable testing and regulatory environment,” nuTonomy founder Karl Iagnemma told Masslive.com.
However, Massachusetts offers weather that could provide a true test of vehicle capability, according to an executive with the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge.
“If your vehicle can drive in Massachusetts,” it can drive anywhere, Ryan Harrington, chief of Volpe’s Technology Policy and Innovation division told the Herald.
Along with Volpe, the state is home to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Nutonomy’s Iagnemma and CTO Emilio Frazzoli have MIT connections.
Devens came to the fore this week at a meeting held in Boston that brought together officials from companies involved with driverless vehicles and robotics research along with Massachusetts’ transportation department and economic development arm.
Representatives from GM, Volkswagen, Lyft, and Zipcar attended the meeting.
Due to its size and links with driverless leaders the Devens site could offer competition to major autonomous vehicle test sites such as Mcity in Michigan, GoMentum in California, and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
Michigan is preparing to greatly expand autonomous testing with the development of the 330-acre Willow Run site.
The Devens site was the U.S. Army’s New England headquarters for 79 years. It was closed in 1996 as part of military base realignment. MassDevelopment controls the area that now houses 100 business and organizations employing about 4,000 workers.
MassDevelopment says in 2015 it had a hand in nearly 300 projects that generated investment of more than $2.5 billion in the state.
Graphic of Devens by MassDevelopment; photo by NuTonomy.