Volkswagen of America has contributed $5.75 to Stanford University with the aim of starting Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory (VAIL) on the territory of the school. The money will help the university’s new program, which target is to promote auto teaching and investigation. The laboratory is going t work on the developing new transportation solutions.
The executive director of Electronics Research Laboratory Burkhard Huhnke explains that the VAIL is supposed to find new ways of investigating auto technology and claims that the VAIL research will bring autonomous driving that they started with their partnership on the DARPA Grand Challenge vehicles, to the next level.
Soon a huge community of academic and industrial partners (VW and Stanford) will be built. Their cooperation is going t continue in the future. Jim Plummer, the dean of Stanford Engineering, noticed that their experience proves the effectiveness of Standford’s partnership with big industrial companies.
The VW hubcap maker will invest $2 million to Stanford to build the VAIL and will guarantee $750,000 a year during the period of five years to cover the research and training in Stanford’s VAIL-based CarLab.
Vehicle security, mobility and environmental safety will be in the first place for VAIL, ” added Plummer. ” Professor Sebastian Thrun, Associate Professor Chris Gerdes, Professor Clifford Nass have already joined our team, that will make car-building industry safer and more enjoyable”
The VAIL working area will be in a new 8,000 square-foot plot next to the corner of Stock Farm Rd and Campus Drive West. The facility will be equipped with lifts and machines. There will also be composite shops, meeting rooms and some outdoor test-driving space.
Vehicle research has the VAIL as the physical home and CarLab as the intellectual community it houses. Joint work done at VAIL and in the CarLab will create new opportunities for machine-building industry and will provide the community with new technologies based on their research. Plummer also hopes, that very soon students will make their contribution in the development of automobile industry.