MTL Annual Report

Transportation is an important infrastructure for our society. It is time to propose a new transportation scheme for resolving the increasing transportation problems. In responding to social needs, MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories established the Intelligent Transportation Research Center (ITRC) in September 1998 as a contact point of industry, government, and academia for ITS research and development.

ITRC focuses on the key Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies, including an integrated network of transportation information, automatic crash and incident detection, notification and response, advanced crash avoidance technology, advanced transportation monitoring and management, etc., in order to improve safety, security, efficiency, mobile access, and environment. There are two emphases for research conduced in the center:

• The integration of component technology research and system design research.
• The integration of technical possibilities and social needs.

ITRC proposes the incremental conversion and development process from current to near- and far-future systems and develops enabling key components in collaboration with the government, industries, and other institutions. Other necessary steps are the integration of technical, social, economical, and political aspects. The integration of the Intelligent Transportation Systems in different countries is also essential. The integration of vehicles, roads, and other modes of transportation, such as railways and public buses, is all imperative.

These integrations are fulfilled with the cooperation of researchers in various fields, including the Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL), the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (AI), the Center for Transportation Studies (CTS), the Age Laboratory, the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Sloan School of Management. The research center has 8 MIT faculty and several visiting professors and scientists. The director of the center is Dr. Ichiro Masaki.