A project of the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) at Mississippi State University will soon be complete, giving the center an example of all its capabilities.
CAVS has been working on the vehicle, named Halo Project, for approximately 18 months. Once complete, the all-electric, self-driving SUV will serve as an example of all of the center’s capabilities, ranging from design to materials science, to name a few.
The project is the successor to the CAVS Car of the Future project, which started in 2014 and is capable of traveling 100 miles on a single gallon of gas using hybrid technology.
CAVS Assistant Director Matthew Doude explained the Halo Project vehicle’s capabilities.
“This project is primarily focused on helping to demonstrate all of the technology that CAVS does, what MSU does in automotive engineering on one vehicle platform,” Doude said.
“This is a bit of a showpiece. It’s a concept car that kind of highlights the cutting-edge research along a lot of different disciplines that we do."
Michelle Price, a mechanical engineering graduate student from Moss Point, explained the meaning of the term “halo” in the automotive industry.
“A halo car is basically a concept vehicle that shows off what that company can do,” Price said. “That’s kind of what we’re doing. We’re not making anything the world has never, ever seen before, but it’s kind of like ‘look what engineering students at Mississippi State can make.’”
Price serves as the project’s lead designer, responsible for the vehicle’s exterior. Prior to the Halo Project, she worked on the CAVS Car of the Future.
She said she was inspired to become an engineer after growing up with several car enthusiasts in her family and seeing the annual Cruisin’ the Coast car show for several years.
Doude gave an overview of the vehicle’s features.
“It has four electric motors, one for each wheel,” Doude said. “It’s all-wheel drive, and has a lot of power and really fast acceleration. Also, the vehicle will be self-driving, all autonomous.”
Doude also said the vehicle’s batteries gave it a 230-mile range and could be charged in approximately an hour and a half.
He also said the vehicle was different than many other autonomous vehicles in its off-road capabilities, as most autonomous vehicles are programmed to follow road markings.
“You don’t have lines that a camera can see, or lane markings that the cameras can follow,” Doude said. “The vehicle has to plot its own course.”
Doude said from the beginning of the project, approximately 20 people had been involved, including faculty, staff and both graduate and undergraduate students.
“I think the most amazing part is that a lot of the really hard work is done by undergrads, not grad students,” Price said. “That just shows how smart some of our kids are.”
The project is now almost to the final assembly phase.
“Within a few months, we will be testing some of the off-road autonomous features,” Doude said. In addition to CAVS-designed components, the vehicle also contains parts from several outside firms, including A123, YASA and Hewland Engineering.
Body work and paint will be provided by Clinton Body Shop.