Centerling working on Autonomous Cars for Everyone

A journey into the future is being worked on by Centerling Felix Naser (Class of Fall 2015). Felix believes in the future of intelligent and autonomous mobility. To achieve his goal he is currently working with two Toyota Prius cars with his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In future, mobility can become not only more comfortable, but also safer and more sustainable. Driven by his motivation for this topic and the encouragement of the international CDTM Community Felix contacted researchers worldwide for related work. Then a dream came true when he got the offer to do research work with the newly founded MIT Research Center for Autonomous Cars. Toyota is spending $25 million over five years to foster the technology development. Since February 2016, Felix is part of the international research team. "Currently we are working on two Toyota Prius, mounting sensors and adapting software from our Singapore colleges (SMART, Singapore-MIT-Alliance for Research and Technology)", explains Felix. The automotive industry faces severe changes, after 120 years of great success. E-Mobility, lightweight-construction, new production processes, and the IoT are far-reaching challenges. In addition to that the ongoing urbanization and the need for sustainable products are trends which shape the future of mobility and its development. And Felix believes new and intelligent technology will play an elementary role to master these challenges successfully. Besides the work in the lab, Felix enjoys his time in Cambridge. "My flat mates welcomed me very warmly and take me everywhere, dance course, ski trip, Venetian ball or rock concert", says Felix. During his bachelor studies, Felix has already showed interest in the future of mobility. Before MIT, during his time at the BMW Group as a participant of the SpeedUp-Program, he got deeply interested in the automotive industry and now he says “Who knows, perhaps in the city of the future, we can order autonomous cars with an app…?” Lets hope so ! Felix is also the winner of an e-fellows grant for this research project.