Samsung Electronics will be the second autonomous tech developer at the the California AutoTech Testing and Development Center (CATDC).
Samsung is looking to test autonomous tech and has done “recent work” testing autonomous tech components at the former site of Castle Air Force Base.
In 2011, Google leased 60 acres of the former base in order to test the development of their new project, the self-driving car.
Waymo has been exclusively testing vehicles at part of the facility since 2014. Currently the CATDC is home to Google/Waymo’s 91-acre Autonomous Vehicle Castle Test Center which is adjacent to CATDC’s shared-use complex that will be used by a range of OEMs and technology suppliers.
Located 80 miles directly east of Silicon Valley, the California AutoTech Testing and Development Center (CATDC) is designed to be a direct extension of Silicon Valley’s global automotive research and product development industry concentration. The CATDC is engineered to be a one-of-a-kind automotive research and development center that capitalizes on California’s substantial technology, research, software development and tech financing presence as an integrated research, testing and manufacturing complex.
The facility resembles a “fake city” with 20,000 unique simulated driving experiences.
Spokesman for Merced County, Mark Hendrickson told WardsAuto that while buildout of the full industrial facility is expected to take an estimated 20 years, the site is “on the verge” of meeting industry needs “in months not years.”
Castle Air Base site includes a business park as well as a general airfield that can accommodate large cargo transports and is currently used by alternate energy and aerospace research companies.
The CATDC is a multi-faceted complex with infrastructure to support a range of testing environments, including urban grid, high-speed, asymmetrical intersections and parking facility testing. Additionally, the CATDC offers a unique capacity to support product development with a range of existing building assets and immediate-access sites for custom development. The complex includes space for small companies that would prefer an onsite presence for their engineering team while also requiring immediate access to the larger test complex. The facility can support storage needs as well.