SEAS transportation participates in the anniversary of Mcity Test Facility
Published October 20, 2025
Faculty from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) helped to celebrate the founding of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and the 10th anniversary of the Mcity Test Facility on October 2 and 3, 2025.
To commemorate the anniversary, UMTRI hosted a two-day symposium that brought together experts from the industry, academia and the government to explore the impact of research advances and new technologies on transportation.
Researchers Chaozhe He, assistant professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Austin Angulo and Irina Benedyk, assistant professors in Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering (CSEE) and Kevin Hulme, program manager for the Stephen Still Institute for Sustainable Transportation and Logistics participated in a full day of demonstration to provide key updates on their ongoing research collaboration.
Live demo feed
Through an active research award led by Dr. He, access to the Mcity facility has been granted to UB since late 2024. The access includes both the physical test track and an authentic “digital twin” replica of the facility for simulation testing. This ongoing collaboration has enabled the advanced integration of human participants within virtual environments and the development of mixed reality testing capabilities using UB’s brand new Transportation Research and Visualization Laboratory (TRAVL).
TRAVL’s research enables the examination of interactions between connected autonomous vehicles and human drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
The October 3, 2025, Demo Day also featured Ye Wang, PhD student from the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, and Vivek Viswam Rajabhavan Viswanathan, MS candidate from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, who have assisted the lead faculty with project development and validation.
The anniversary demonstration observed a classic crosswalk scenario interaction between a vehicle and a pedestrian. UB researchers remotely interacted with a live vehicle on the Mcity test track virtually, using advanced pedestrian and driving simulators that comprise the TRAVL facility. The UB and Mcity collaboration is ongoing, and the current work will investigate additional mixed reality egress scenarios that will aim to increase safety and efficiency of human mobility.