In Michigan, a new autonomous-car test track is quite literally paving the way towards a new future. Based in the college town of Ann Arbor, MCity is the name of the interactive, interconnected track designated for self-driving cars. Currently testing 1,500 cars owned by university employees and local residents, MCity has become the grounds for a mixture of research and real-life application through a pilot program called vehicle to vehicle, or V2V, communications.

Starting in 2015, Mcity is the result of a public-private partnership between the University of Ann Arbor Michigan, automakers and insurers. With a size of 37-acres, Mcity offers a multitude of different road types and testing replicas for the real-world. Today, the test track is home to research by a plethora of automobile companies, some of which are General Motors (GM  ), Honda (HMC  ), BMW (ETR: BMW) and the well known technology company Intel (INTC  ). In all, the extensive partnership between such prominent players in the auto industry demonstrate the budding, intensive focus on self-driving cars. Compared to other places, such as Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh, and Europe (who has taken part in the recent testing on self-driving trucks), Mcity is proving to be a key player in self-driving car research, given their groundbreaking pilot program V2V communications.

© MCity / mcity.umich.edu

Vehicle to vehicle, or V2V, communications is aimed at easing traffic and making roads for self-driving cars safer through intercommunication between vehicles. Each vehicle involved in the Mcity practice track emits speed and direction 10 times per second through small radio transmitters. These transmitters, in turn, communicate with transmitters located in intersections, traffic lights and crosswalks. In doing so, each vehicle is directly connected with other vehicles and the surrounding traffic areas. The setup offers a smoother mechanism for traffic, even allowing a self-driving car to let an actual car run a red light before making its own turn at an intersection. While the project has found success with over 1,000 cars, the university wants to run about 2,500 cars by the year 2018.

Until then, Mcity plans to host two self-driving, fifteen passenger shuttles for students, faculty and staff across the university's campus this fall. The shuttles will reportedly use LIDAR and GPS systems to accurately show where the shuttles are on campus, as well as the objects that surround the shuttles during their trip. In addition, the two autonomous vehicles will have cameras and Wi-Fi for data collection during the shuttles' routes.

© MCity / mcity.umich.edu

On the state of Mcity and it's growing success with self-driving cars, it appears that MCity is making important strides in self-driving car research. Director of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute James R. Sayer expanded on the significance of MCity, stating that the "combination of research and testing in a controlled facility like MCity, and testing on the street in the real world, on this scale, doesn't exist anywhere else in the world." If more cars can successfully pass through the test tracks of MCity, it won't be long before self-driving cars become a reality.