Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland and Tallin University of Technology in Estonia are broadening their reach with a partnership focused on fixing the safety issues inherent in today's autonomous vehicle technology.
The partnership, first formed with a memorandum of understanding in 2019, has produced an open-source environment called PolyVerif, which provides new tools for testing and validating AV technology.
"There's a need for a research platform where we can accelerate the rate at which we're solving the safety problems with AV technology, and that's what our joint research with TalTech offers," Rahul Razdan, senior director for special projects at Florida Poly and researcher at its Advanced Mobility Institute, said in a statement.
TalTech is the only technical university in Estonia. Its faculty spent months in Lakeland working and researching with Razdan and his team, facilitating a $350,000 National Science Foundation grant, according to a release.
Florida Poly's AV researchers provide validation and verification expertise, while TalTech can run its own AV technology, having helped produce self-driving shuttles that operate in seven European countries and run on open-source software.
Florida Poly is one of several Florida universities searching for a new president. Randy Avent, the school's only president since its inception in 2014, will step down next summer.
