The Curiosity Lab innovation center at Peachtree Corners unveiled a new autonomous vehicle for companies to test out different technologies.
The Ford Edge test vehicle will function as an open-source platform in which companies can install specific technologies and see how they work in the car, Curiosity Lab executive director Betsy Plattenburg said.
"We found that people were really interested, especially early-stage tech companies and university researchers, to test some of their ideas for what could be used in the future with autonomous vehicles,” Plattenburg said. “But not all those people had a vehicle to use.”
The Curiosity Lab, a nonprofit smart city laboratory that’s the economic development arm of Peachtree Corners, purchased the vehicle to add more testing capabilities to the innovation center’s “living laboratory.”
The lab, located north of Atlanta, has a 1.5-mile test track, 5G capabilities and a 25,000-square-foot facility. The aim is to give companies a real-world venue to test products free of charge, which brings business into the city.
The test track runs alongside a public street where autonomous vehicles or other innovations in mobile technologies can be tested with the variables that are not present in a lab setting. The new test vehicle will drive on that track and could be testing sensors that synchronize with traffic lights, computer vision or other specific features.
The Curiosity Lab is a little over a year old and faced some stalls in its growth because of the pandemic but has since seen interest pick up, Plattenburg told the Business Chronicle in September.
“We’ve got a nice queue of companies coming in to test different things,” Plattenburg said. “We’re very happy with our progress so far.”
Plattenburg said heating and air company ASHRAE and health technology company Brightree moved their headquarters to Peachtree Corners because of Curiosity Lab. The innovation center has also worked with partners such as Delta Air Lines and Georgia Tech on different testing projects.
In May, the center worked with micromobility startups Go X and Tortoise to deploy a fleet of 100 teleoperated e-scooters, which was one of the world’s first fleets ready for public use.
Plattenburg said she thinks other micromobility projects, focused on one-person, short-range mobility, will be coming up at the Curiosity Lab.
