Toyota Research Institute (TRI), a subsidiary of Toyota Motor North America, recently announced it is constructing a closed-course, automated-vehicle test facility scheduled to open in October.
The facility will be located in Ottawa Lake, Michigan, at the approximately 60-acre Michigan Technical Resource Park. It is being built inside the park’s 1.75-mile oval test track and will replicate a four-lane divided highway with high-speed entrance and exit ramps, slick surfaces, and congested urban environments.
Toyota will use the facility to test driving scenarios that too dangerous for public roads.
“By constructing a course for ourselves, we can design it around our unique testing needs and rapidly advance capabilities, especially with Toyota Guardian automated vehicle mode,” Ryan Eustice, TRI senior vice president of automated driving, said. “This new site will give us the flexibility to customize driving scenarios that will push the limits of our technology and move us closer to conceiving a human-driven vehicle that is incapable of causing a crash.”
TRI is leasing the land from the park and is responsible for design and construction of the facility as well as its maintenance. Under its lease, TRI will have access to the park’s onsite facilities and services and the oval track.