MEET THE MILLIPOD
We believe urban transportation is about moving people, not vehicles.
Electrification of transportation is a missed opportunity if 90 to 99% of the energy is wasted in moving the vehicle instead of the person.
Stopping to pick up and drop off passengers significantly slows public transit vehicles and also imposes a significant energy penalty, which produces increased costs for diesel fuel or requires additional time to recharge.
High energy costs to move a heavy bus means that even electric buses may need to obtain their energy through burning fossil fuel.
Founder
Dr. Tyler Folsom founded Micro-AV Social Purpose Corporation in June 2020 for the purpose of moving people and goods with minimal energy. Micro-AV Social Purpose Corporation has filed for a patent on the MilliPod. The company focuses on applying vehicle automation technology to micromobility.
Dr. Folsom’s PhD and MS are from the University of Washington in Electrical Engineering. He holds a MA in Mathematics from the University of Maryland and a BS in Mathematics from Villanova University.
Follow us on our journey
The technological and social systems to support full robot taxis are in the future, perhaps 2025.
However, we are working on a less ambitious option that can be deployed with today’s technology.
2017: Taking automated vehicle technology to bicycles
2020: Conceptual Design
The MilliPod is a modular platoon of two-seated pods that can join and leave a moving platoon autonomously. The platoon is led by a transit vehicle driven by a professional driver. Passenger pods will join into the platoon, adapting to ridership needs by only having as many pods as needed. The MilliPod takes advantage of its lightweight and modular, bumper-to-bumper pods, moving people with a fraction of the energy. This allows for powering of units with on-site clean and renewable sources without complex infrastructure designs.
2021: 1/5 Model Configured
Micro-AV acquired and configured five 1/5 scale model vehicles to demonstrate the behaviors needed for the MilliPod. We have demonstrated that the model vehicles can autonomously navigate a square outdoor course.
Further work is directed to improving localization by utilizing landmark recognition. The test vehicles do not presently have GNSS receivers installed. We plan to install these systems and evaluate improvement to localization.
2022: CCAV 1/10 Challenge
Micro-AV will lead a distributed team to improve localization of Connected and Communicating Automated Vehicles. Success will be measured by the error between actual and estimated positions. The goal is to keep the vehicles in their desired half-lanes.
Feasibility of MilliPod control, will be demonstrated by a platoon of six scale model vehicles driving bumper-to-bumper. From here we show in-motion mechanical coupling and docking.
The Future: THE FINAL BUILD
We envision an urban road train in which the lead vehicle is operated manually. Two-person fully automated pods platoon behind bumper-to-bumper. The bus never stops for passengers. Riders choose their destination, pay their fares, and seat themselves in a pod parked at the bus stop. The pod joins onto the next passing platoon, and follows it until the destination.