CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – A couple of autonomous vehicles traveled through eastern Iowa today from the Twin Cities to Texas. Cars are used only for research and development of autonomous driving technologies and safety devices.

The company behind the wheel is VSI Labs. The leaders there told us that they had full control of the vehicles at all times on the road.

“These vehicles are under our total control as human operators, okay, and so we’re still, you know, we’re driving, hands on the wheel. Even though the vehicle drives itself, we still pay attention to the systems and are ready to take over whenever we need it, ”said Phil Magney, President and Founder of VSI Labs.

They stopped at Hiawatha because Crystal Group created the automated computer systems inside the cars there. VSI is testing vehicle technology for a variety of manufacturers and stopped by Hiawtha’s office so employees could see all the hard work they put into making the computer systems inside a car work. real.

“Being able to see it and see some of the diagnostics and video footage of it along the way is really exciting for the company,” said Brian Hamed, program manager at Crystal Group.

VSI Labs takes a different road trip to test the technology every two months. None of the normal conferences they go to for protests have been held since the pandemic, so they decided to take the show on the road.

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