McMaster University is partnering with two tech giants and autonomous vehicle experts to host a research lab on self-driving cars in the smart cities of the future.
The incubator, to be housed at the McMaster Innovation Park, will focus on how autonomous vehicles will affect transportation and the design of smart cities, says David Carter, executive director of Innovation City, a partner in the project. Amazon Web Services and Nokia are investing $4.3 million over five years to help drive the research, which will involve applied researchers from McMaster.
The facility will allow researchers to test scenarios into how self-driving vehicles might interact with urban infrastructure – for example, telecom networks and sensor-equipped street lamps – to safely and efficiently run such systems.
Hamilton is one of six sites in Ontario that have received a total of $80-million in provincial funding to drive research into autonomous vehicle research.
