CCRI: Planning: ScooterLab: Development of a Programmable and Participatory e-Scooter Testbed to Enable CISE-focused Micromobility Research

单人微型交通工具，如无码头电池供电的电动滑板车，是我们城市社区中快速增长和流行的短途交通工具。这种即将到来的交通模式不仅为计算机和信息科学工程（CISE）的大规模数据管理，计算机硬件/软件系统设计，网络安全和用户隐私等重点领域提供了新的研究机会，而且还可以作为一种优秀的工具来收集上下文数据，这些数据可以使机器学习，高性能计算，城市规划，交通工程和公共政策等其他各种CISE和多学科领域的研究成为可能。然而，目前还没有一种由微型移动车辆组成的大规模、易于定制和公众可访问的研究仪器来支持这些机会，这阻碍了这些领域的科学进步。该项目的目标是计划创建和最终部署这样一个社区基础设施-一个称为ScooterLab的测试平台。ScooterLab测试平台包括用定制的传感器和控制器计算机改造现有的微型移动车辆，并开发一个管理门户网站，以支持跨学科的研究合作。它将提供给社区研究人员部署定制的传感实验和新算法/系统的试验。从这些实验和试验精心策划的数据集将是公开的，并将使新的，突破性的研究在CISE和其他多学科领域的突破。这个CISE社区研究基础设施（CCRI）规划项目将作出以下主要贡献：（1）向CISE和其他国际组织伸出援手，专注于微移动研究的学科社区，以进一步了解该领域研究人员的需求，（2）为计划的试验台实施概念验证车辆，并根据社区反馈不断改进这些初步原型的设计，以及（3）组织重点研讨会和教程，以更新社区关于这些初步车辆设计，试验台部署计划和相关研究目标的信息。这个规划项目是实现ScooterLab社区测试平台的必要步骤，它可以防止不与他人共享的研究测试平台的耗时和昂贵的重复。 该项目的推广活动和计划中的ScooterLab测试平台将为吸引和维持从事智能微移动解决方案和交通系统的教师和学生提供机会，并将汇集来自计算机科学，电气工程，城市规划和公共政策的研究人员在这一新兴领域进行跨学科研究。该试验台也将成为德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校（UTSA）规划的城市科学研究所的基础仪器，这是市中心校园十年计划的一部分。作为一个少数民族服务机构（56%的西班牙裔和51%的女性），UTSA作为这个试验台的家将为有色人种和女性提供广泛的研究和参与机会。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Single-rider micromobility vehicles, such as dock-less battery-powered e-scooters, are a fast-growing and popular short-distance transportation mechanism in our urban communities. This upcoming transportation paradigm not only provides new research opportunities in Computer and Information Science & Engineering (CISE) focused areas of large-scale data management, computer hardware/software systems design, cyber security and user-privacy, but also serves as an excellent instrument to collect contextual data that could enable research in a variety of other CISE and multi-disciplinary areas such as machine learning, high performance computing, urban planning, transportation engineering and public policy. However, currently a large-scale, easily customizable, and publicly-accessible research instrument comprising of micromobility vehicles to support these opportunities is unavailable, which hinders scientific advances in these areas. The goal of this project is to plan for the creation and eventual deployment of such a community infrastructure - a testbed referred to as ScooterLab. The ScooterLab testbed involves retrofitting off-the-shelf micromobility vehicles with customized sensors and controller computers and developing a management portal to support inter-disciplinary research collaborations. It will be available to community researchers for deployment of customized sensing experiments and trials of new algorithms/systems. Carefully curated datasets from these experiments and trials will be publicly-available and will enable new, ground-breaking research breakthroughs in CISE and other multi-disciplinary domains.This CISE Community Research Infrastructure (CCRI) planning project will make the following key contributions: (1) reach out to CISE and other inter-disciplinary communities focusing on micromobility research in order to further understand the requirements of researchers within this space, (2) implement proof-of-concept vehicles for the planned testbed and continuously improve the design of these preliminary prototypes based on community feedback, and (3) organize focused workshops and tutorials to update the community about these preliminary vehicle designs, testbed deployment plans and related research goals. This planning project is a necessary step towards implementation of the ScooterLab community testbed, which can prevent time-consuming and expensive duplication of research testbeds that are not shared with others. The outreach activities of this project and the planned ScooterLab testbed will provide opportunities for attracting and sustaining faculty and students working on intelligent micromobility solutions and transportation systems, and will bring together researchers from computer science, electrical engineering, urban planning, and public policy for inter-disciplinary research in this emerging area. The testbed will also be a foundational instrument for University of Texas at San Antonio’s (UTSA) planned Urban Science Institute, which is part of the ten-year plan for the Downtown campus. As a minority-serving institution (56% Hispanic and 51% Female), UTSA as a home for this testbed will provide extensive research and participation opportunities for people of color and women.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.