On Friday, GM opened its new test center where safety engineers will develop and test safety technologies at the 52-acre Active Safety Test Area at Milford Proving Ground near Detroit.The new Active Safety Test Area concentrates the company’s active safety testing into one, state-of-the-art site. It features:
- A 16-acre dynamics pad for testing a variety of robot-controlled and automated vehicles.
- Highway simulation with six lanes, on/off ramps, controlled lighting and road signs that represent specifications around the world.
- A parking test area with different curb types and landscaping detection.
- Pedestrian test area with a 90-degree traffic intersection and specially designed rig for accurate dummy movement.
- Simulated tunnel with walls and posts.
- A building for observation, indoor testing, hoists for test preparation and a robotic control station.
The facility will be used for testing vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) technologies, which will be standard on the 2017 Cadillac CTS.
The V2V dedi
cated short-range radio communication enables vehicles to “talk” to each other and exchange basic safety data such as speed, location and braking status. It complements existing safety components like radar, camera and ultrasonic sensors; some of the components rigorously tested at the new Active Safety Test Area facility, in a fast and efficient way.
The facility is also used to assess performance in regulatory and insurance industry consumer metric tests, such as those conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Euro New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and others.
Recently, the University of Michigan opened another automotive test center, Mcity that will enable testing of self-driving vehicles in cold weather.