Connected and Automated Vehicle Education

Connected and Automated Vehicle education (CAVe) seeks to provide community colleges, trade schools, universities, and other academic stakeholders with unique tools and resources for the development of an intelligent transportation workforce.

The ITS PCB Program offers the following CAVe educational resources:

Connected and Automated Vehicle Education (CAVe)-in-a-box Hands-on Learning

CAVe-in-a-box is a hands-on learning experience to aid curriculum, and support instruction for community colleges and trade schools, facilitate benchmarking connected vehicle equipment, and support onboarding of ITS technicians. The CAVe-in-a-box infrastructure and onboard kits are equipped with all of the necessary transportation radios, networking equipment, traffic control devices, and software to train, deploy, and test a scaled intelligent transportation system in your classroom.

CAVe-in-a-box System Design Document

The Connected and Automated Vehicle Education (CAVe)-in-a-box System Design Document (April 2022; PDF HTML) provides setup and software configuration guides for original connected vehicle (CV) test tools. The document also serves as a valuable resource to gain an understanding of how intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are designed. The System Design Document:

• Introduces CAVe-in-a-box as a technical tool for educational purposes.
• Provides detailed documentation of all aspects related to CAVe-in-a-box, from required electrical and mechanical components to physical connections.
• Provides information on software requirements for the kit, including testing and debugging.
• Provides hands-on use cases and examples related to CAVe-in-a-box.

To learn more about how you can bring CAVe-in-a-box to your curriculum, email CAVSupportServices@dot.gov.

CAVe-in-a-box Do It Yourself (DIY) Instructions

Learn to build your own CAVe-in-a-box infrastructure kit. Through these DIY instructions, you will be able to:

• Build your own CAVe-in-a-box from scratch. (March 2022; PDF HTML)
• Learn to setup and configure your own CAVe-in-a-box toolkit. (March 2022; PDF HTML)

The CAVe-in-a-box Training Video Series

The CAVe-in-a-box training video series is a compendium to the one-of-a-kind intelligent transportation training tool that can supplement curriculum with dynamic hands-on instructional videos. This series covers everything from vehicle radio configuration, installation, and mounting to data flows in a full deployed transportation management system. By following along with the series and reading the CAVe-in-a-box system design document, you will be ready to deploy CAVe-in-a-box in a classroom setting. The July 2021 videos cover the following topics:

1. Road Side Unit (RSU)
2. Onboard Unit
3. V2X Hub
4. CAVe-in-a-box
5. Signal Phasing and Timing (SPaT) and MAP (Intersection Map)
6. Traffic Management Center
7. Maintenance
8. How to Build CAVe-in-a-box
9. Connected and Automated Vehicle Education Research Software (CAVERS)
10. Connected and Automated Vehicle Education (CAVe) Lite