Local officials, industry leaders 'key ingredients' for I-ACT's success

Great inventions require the thoughtful consideration of many. Behind every single one is a collaborative effort of brainstorming. Illinois Center for Transportation’s Illinois Autonomous and Connected Track is no different.

In the last couple of months, ICT’s welcomed many new and returning faces ― all with the intent to build excitement about the high-speed connected and autonomous vehicle track near the facility on the decommissioned Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois. Without any further ado, let’s recap those visits:

 

Federal Highway Administration and Illinois Department of Transportation

Federal Highway Administration and Illinois Department of Transportation personnel couldn’t wait to hear about the future of transportation during their visit earlier in October.

Key officials included Arlene Kocher, FHWA Illinois division administrator; Doug House, IDOT deputy secretary; and Matt Magalis, IDOT’s chief of staff.

Other attendees included FHWA’s David Snyder, Illinois assistant division administrator; Dan Brydl, bridge engineer; and Curtiss Robinson, assistant bridge engineer. IDOT’s LaDonna Rowden, bureau chief of research, and Megan Swanson, technical research coordinator, were also in attendance.

Imad Al-Qadi, ICT’s director and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Bliss Professor of Engineering, was thrilled to chat with the transportation leaders about the potential for autonomous and connected vehicle research at ICT.

“For the last 15 years, ICT has had the pleasure of collaborating with FHWA and IDOT,” Al-Qadi said. “We look forward to continuing that collaboration, pioneering the future of transportation together.”

 

John Deere

Perhaps the most exciting element of autonomous vehicles for Christopher Myers, vice president of John Deere’s Tractor Platform Engineering, are their ability to do “more with less,” he said.

“That’s what excites us, and that’s what excites our customers . . . is to see the reality.”

John Reid’s, director of John Deere’s Product Technology and Innovation, light-bulb moment all came down to thinking about how agricultural equipment could be a part of I-ACT’s research efforts.

“The idea of being able to have a test-validation, verification facility for the entire ecosystem is also very interesting from an autonomous vehicle perspective,” he said.

The concept of automation isn’t necessarily new for the agricultural leader. In fact, they’ve been producing automatic guidance products for the last 20 years, such as tractors navigating themselves the in fields with little human interaction.

But Reid sees a real difference between automatic guidance and autonomous vehicles.

“There’s a real difference between the on-road productions, you know driving the car, to off-road,” Reid said.

As for the future of autonomy and John Deere? Well, that’s something Reid foresees an exciting prospect.

“I still feel like we have a lot of opportunity to help our customers with automation,” he said, “(but) at the same time, autonomy is something we’ve been used to making products to where we just design it and sell it. And autonomy, it’s not going to happen that way. We’re going to have to pilot it.”

What a better place to test such equipment than with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s autonomous track?

That’s something where Reid sees great potential.

“Having a facility that can address the longer-term problems is very interesting,” he said.

“It has to be built in a way that looks at broad problems versus the specific needs of every individual company,” Reid added. “If you’re going to have something that lasts overtime, then it has to have the ability to address the bigger challenges. I see a lot of elements of that here.”

 

Champaign County Economic Development Corporation

Area businesses and local leaders were also anxious to learn more about the potential positive economic impact with the up and coming autonomous track.

“People are kind of blown away and excited when they learn about (it),” said Carly McCrory, executive director of Champaign County’s Economic Development Corporation.

“People are going to be excited about the things they see and when they realize its potential, like when Imad (Al-Qadi) does his presentation and we see the drones moving things,” she added. “We’re always like, ‘Oh my, gosh! That’s so cool!’”

McCrory said not only do the EDC members get amped up about the “obvious” and “immediate impact” of job creation, but also the ability to take part in the formation of what will be a huge asset to the community.

“Ultimately, we hope that they’ll become a cheerleader of the project, and help advocate for it as things get developed,” she said.

“This is a really good example of what happens when people come to the table willing to work together,” McCrory added. “You have an educational institution, you have a municipality and then you also have the private sector coming to the table, too. All of those are key ingredients to drive the project forward and really think differently and innovatively, and everyone is excited to make this possible.”