Trends—April 2015: RFID: Better Late Than Never

　The University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), in concert with the state Department of Transportation and automobile manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors, Toyota, and Honda, will use Mcity as a controlled test site to study the feasibility of autonomous vehicles. The facility is expected to open in spring 2015.

　　The University of Michigan's endeavor invites automakers and other interests to test-drive vehicles in a more public setting, in hopes of accelerating the adoption of common standards across this emerging industry.

　　Mcity has a midwestern "pedal-to-the-grindstone" sensibility. It's an appropriate foil for the high-tech, high-flying playground of Silicon Valley—where the likes of Google, Apple, and other futurists are toying

　　with prototypes under clandestine cover in near-perfect weather. Michigan's seasonality and UMTRI's openness provide more realistic conditions to test hypersensitive systems in a competitive environment.

　　While the idea of driverless cars—and drones for that matter—has captured mainstream imaginations, its impact in the freight industry is very real. Driver shortages, safety, and training are top-of-mind concerns around the world. Similar technology has already been widely tested in different scenarios. For instance, the mining industry is using driverless trucks at remote sites where safety is paramount.

　　Elsewhere, the European Union-sponsored Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) project, conducted between 2009 and 2012, used radar, fixed lasers, and cameras to experiment with driver-led platoons of unmanned vehicles. In effect, a human-driven vehicle leads a convoy of autonomous cars or trucks. Jean-Paul Sartre's blushes aside, the implications for freight transport are considerable.

　　The appeal of "auto-motion" is tangible. Driverless cars, like drones, have a pop-sci audience that extends well beyond the transportation and logistics sector. But supply chain "modeling"—in its truest sense—is much more pervasive than that. In countless other examples, largely unseen, industry is simulating reality to better understand the future.

　　A few miles outside of downtown Fayetteville, Ark., the Sam M. Walton College of Business has repurposed a non-descript warehouse as a 10,000-square-foot retail format. The backroom warehouse and loading dock are "just" convenient fixtures. For all intents and purposes, the retail operations lab is a real store stocked with all kinds of brand name consumer goods.