UNT researchers from across disciplines work together to deploy intelligent mobility systems, including autonomous vehicle and aerial drone technology, in rural and urban settings.
TEXT: JESSICA DELEON
PHOTOGRAPHY: LEO GONZALEZ
UNT’s Center for Integrated Intelligent Mobility Systems (CIIMS) is paving the way for the future of transportation and mobility — working to accelerate collaboration between manufacturers, logistics professionals and emerging technologies to develop unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous cars and robots.
Established in 2020, the center is focused on integrated, intelligent mobility systems as well as creating solutions for the systems’ complexities, such as the technology, data and policy. It brings together more than 50 researchers across disciplines, from the College of Engineering and the G. Brint Ryan College of Business to the College of Information and College of Health and Public Service.
“The whole concept of mobility we’re tackling is very broad and encompassing,” says Terry Pohlen, senior associate dean of the G. Brint Ryan College of Business, director of UNT’s Jim McNatt Institute for Logistics Research and co-director of CIIMS. “It ranges from personal mobility to supply chains and the movement of freight.”
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The center’s projects have tapped into partnerships with national and global implications. In addition to this past October’s live flight test of emerging Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) technologies, including a simulated air route between industry partner Hillwood’s AllianceTexas Flight Test Center in Justin and UNT’s Discovery Park in Denton, the university announced another new collaboration.
During the summer, UNT partnered with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to develop an Advanced Regional Mobility Corridor that will offer future economic opportunity and growth. Leadership from both sides are collaborating to create a plan for facilitating a multi-modal advanced transportation corridor that will leverage progress with emerging transportation technologies, including automated ground vehicles and AAM.
Choctaw Nation also is developing an Emerging Aviation Technology Center on more than 44,500 acres of tribal-owned land within the Choctaw Nation Reservation and has already built an extensive aviation testing safety infrastructure to support research, development and testing of emerging aviation technologies.
“The future opportunities associated with advanced transportation technologies are exciting and are happening faster than we may realize,” says James L. Grimsley, executive director of advanced technology initiatives with the Choctaw Nation Oklahoma and an Oklahoma Transportation Commissioner. “Future economic growth and even quality of life and quality of health in our communities will be directly impacted by emerging transportation technologies.”
And UNT’s expertise and industry connections in North Texas position it at the forefront of the development of intelligent mobility systems that can solve big problems.
“We are advancing all aspects of research from intelligent mobility ideas to business practices to the community acceptance of the autonomous ground and air vehicles with the cooperation of industry,” says Andrey Voevodin, co-director of CIIMS and associate dean for research in the College of Engineering.
The center also is constructing a $1.2 million outdoor Advanced Mobility Test Facility for researching autonomous air and ground vehicles at UNT’s Discovery Park, which will be the first of its kind in Texas. Researchers can conduct field tests in all weather conditions and in full compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration, while ground-based equipment can test communications for autonomous cars. In spring 2022, legislative staffers and industry partners visited Discovery Park to learn more about the center.
“When we develop and integrate the intelligent mobility innovations, business models and technologies into one cohesive focus, and when we co-operate closely with our industry, federal, state and regional government partners and policy makers, all of this is for one purpose,” Voevodin says. “To improve the quality of life for citizens and communities in Texas and beyond.”