UC San Diego is launching an international research collaboration, named as Smart Transportation Innovation Program (STIP), to develop smart and clean transportation systems and infrastructure, with an added goal of commercializing the results.
In partnership with the City of San Diego, the City of Ulsan in Korea and the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), along with numerous industry partners, the UC San Diego Smart Transportation Innovation Program will develop technological solutions to tomorrow’s transportation challenges.
This project aims to strengthen and create innovation hubs to make San Diego and Ulsan leaders in smart and green transportation solutions. At a launch event in San Diego, smart transportation leaders from both cities and from universities and leading companies shared some of the challenges the Program will tackle, which include: developing sensors, computing and communication technologies for assisted and autonomous vehicles; developing transportation solutions for people with disabilities and the elderly; enabling the smart manufacturing of electric vehicles and more efficient battery and charging systems; and creating city-wide predictive maps of vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
All of these efforts have the intended byproduct of helping the City of San Diego achieve its ambitious Climate Action Plan goals of using 100 percent renewable energy and cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2035, with half of all trips via means other than a single occupant vehicle. The City of San Diego is a sandbox and is open as a laboratory to play.
General Electric, a corporate partner with STIP, took the first step into the sandbox when it installed 3,200 smart LED street lights in San Diego equipped with visual and acoustic sensors capable of generating environmental data, identifying open parking spots, tracking traffic, pedestrian and bike patterns, and more. This data will be available to STIP researchers as they work to improve transportation infrastructure.
One project that has been started is developing a real-time dynamic situational awareness map of city streets of all vehicles and users, one that’s constantly changing as street conditions change, and is even predictive. This project uses these smart street lights to collect tracking data and build this real-time map. Innovators will be able to develop smart transportation applications using such a dynamic and predictive situational awareness map.
Translating the research conducted through STIP into commercial products is a key component of the collaboration. STIP will use the California Assembly Bill 2664 funding it received from the state of California for the acceleration of technology transfer, to provide grant funding to smart transportation startups accepted into the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur’s recently expanded accelerator programs. UNIST also plans to commercialize its research, as well.
Source: https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/san_diego_korea_team_up_to_tackle_transportation