Home » Corporate Engagement » R&D Partnership Highlights » Mobility @ MSU

Mobility @ MSU

MSU Mobility Research Goals

MSU Mobility seeks to become a premier ecosystem for research and development of technologies and processes that drive the future of human-centric multi-modal mobility of the 21st century. MSU Mobility research is focused on developing integrated systems of communication and control for automated vehicles and their environment.

Understanding human engagement with — and the societal impacts of — autonomous technology is an integral part of our mission. We take a multimobility approach to transportation that encompasses connected, automated vehicles; bicycles; scooters; pedestrians and smart infrastructure, operating within a diverse campus validation environment.

Spanning a variety of disciplines as well as on-campus collaborative groups such as MSU Mobility and CANVAS, MSU’s mobility research is driven by more than 60 faculty researchers within the colleges of Engineering, Law, Communication Arts and Sciences, Social Science and the Eli Broad College of Business.

Campus Ecosystem

MSU Mobility in the News

Building greener vehicles with help from plants

Spartan engineers and Ford Motor Co. are creating new polymers and composites for the automotive industry using sustainable materials from nature.

As a building material, bamboo is pretty amazing. Even though it’s technically a grass, bamboo’s reeds can be tougher than timber. It also grows fast, helping make it more sustainable than lumber.

Zhaojian Li: Connecting vehicles for safer and more efficient mobility

This Spartan engineer is working to improve safety by using the power of the cloud and the data cars are already collecting.

For an engineer who spends so much time with his head in the cloud, Michigan State University’s Zhaojian Li is remarkably grounded.

Spartans in the driver's seat: The future of autonomous vehicles

At Michigan State University, researchers are accelerating the future of driving by making autonomous vehicles safer under any road or weather conditions.

Integrating different technologies and using multimodal sensor fusion, they are leading innovation that allows autonomous vehicles to perceive the environment in challenging conditions like snow, heavy rain and fog and react appropriately.

Let’s Build Safer Streets Together with Data

Building a transportation system where people can move safely is a top priority for nearly every city leader — whether someone is commuting to work or taking an e-scooter to meet a friend. According to the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA), each year more than 35,000 fatalities occur as a result of motor vehicle crashes in the United States. In fact, NHTSA found that while there were fewer cars on the road in the first half of 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were more deaths per mile traveled.

Michigan State University establishes Advisory Council to further accelerate MSU Mobility’s vision

Michigan State University announced today it has assembled the MSU Mobility Advisory Council to help guide the university’s vision for the future of mobility. With experts from eight respected mobility-oriented organizations taking part in the council, MSU is well positioned to gain valuable insight and perspectives of future industry and societal needs and the types of research and projects that MSU could support. Additional members may be invited to join the council in the future.

New partnership brings e-scooters back to campus

Michigan State University has a new exclusive partnership to provide e-scooters on campus with Spin, a San Francisco-based micromobility unit of Ford Motor Co., that will bring hundreds of e-scooters to campus this fall. The partnership is a continuation of the university’s effort to use the campus as a testbed to drive the future of human-centric mobility solutions.