ICT hosts visitors

8/1/2018

Engineers and students are constantly in motion at ICT and in recent months several visitors have come to see all of the action at for themselves.

UIUC, UIC and NW research leaders met to discuss STII.

STII Members get ready to tour the proposed site of I-ACT.

Earlier last month, ICT was once again the meeting spot for educational leaders, but this time from the research leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University. The purpose of this gathering was to discuss the collaboration and the plans for supporting the Smart Transportation Infrastructure Initiative, which aims to improve the lives of the traveling public in Illinois and beyond through innovation. The development of the Illinois Autonomous and Connected Track is a key component of that discussion.

Students, researchers, and engineers give Richard Snider a tour of ATREL.

Village of Rantoul Administrator Richard S. Snider, who graduated from the College of Engineering at UIUC, toured the laboratories at the former Chanute Air Force Base for the very first time. Snider says it is important for government officials to have a close relationship with ICT, especially as plans move forward to expand the grounds and the scope of research that is conducted in the town he leads as part of STII.

Senior Research Engineer Greg Renshaw and Ph.D. Student Issam Qamhia discuss ATLAS with Jeb Tingle.

“It seems like they’re doing some really interesting projects here that will help people with transportation challenges and I’m excited to hear about some of the future ideas for development in terms of autonomous vehicles and so many other areas of research that are ongoing in transportation,” Snider said.

U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Senior Research Engineer Jeb Tingle paid a visit to ICT as well. ICT engineers and students gave him a tour of the Advanced Transportation Research and Engineering Laboratory (ATREL) as well as the Accelerated Transportation Loading System (ATLAS) on the grounds. Tingle was impressed to see the growth of ICT in the years since he obtained his PhD in civil engineering from UIUC.

Finally, leaders of the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) in Chicago paid a visit to ATREL as well. Guests were treated to a tour of the facility and a discussion took place about a collaboration centered on STII. Like STII, DPI is a public-private organization dedicated to developing and deploying future technologies to improve the lives of the traveling public. Among the guests at this visit were Vice President of the University of Illinois System and Discovery Partners Institute interim director Ed Seidel, Assistant Vice President for Economic Development & Innovation Kristy Kuzmuk, and Professor of Astronomy and the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Education Gabrielle Allen.