Vehicle Infrastructure Technology, Analysis and Science
(VITAS) Center

Since its inception, PATH has been in the forefront of vehicle- infrastructure and vehicle-vehicle communication, initially for mobility with potential safety benefits. The advent of the national “Vehicle Infrastructure Integration” (VII)
program and the subsequent first-of-its-kind Caltrans roadside deployment and experimentation of VII, implemented with Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), brings to focus the historical and ongoing PATH leadership in using communications – and information – to facility mobility and safety concepts.

These projects are manifold, with current projects addressing VII, and in particular VII California (see below), Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, car-to-car communications for vehicle safety, and building radio testbeds for DSRC. These projects are now organized in the crosscutting VITAS Center within PATH. The VITAS Center now gives to PATH and its research sponsors:

• Focus on vehicle-infrastructure research at PATH
  
• Cross-fertilization of research ideas and researchers
  
• Housing of VITAS Center research assets in a common laboratory

The VITAS Center is not funded by our primary research partner, Caltrans; instead, and to underscore, the VITAS Center is created to give energy and focus to long-standing PATH research and leadership in vehicle-infrastructure cooperative systems.