What Is CARMA?

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) developed the innovative CARMA^SM Platform to encourage collaboration with the goal of improving transportation efficiency and safety. FHWA's interest in advancing Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) strategies with automated driving technology is focused on how infrastructure can move traffic more efficiently.

CARMA enables Automated Driving Systems (ADS) to navigate more safely and efficiently with other vehicles and roadway infrastructure though communication and cooperation. CARMA was designed using open source software (OSS) and is available on GitHub. The unique platform was created to work collaboratively with any vehicle, hardware, or control system. By simplifying software development and providing access to increased functionality and a community of developers, CARMA enables the research and development (R&D) of cooperative automated driving system (CADS) capabilities to support TSMO. 

CARMA also will develop a concept of operations for new TSMO strategies, such as identifying Traffic Incident Management (TIM) scenarios that provide new strategies for first responder use cases interacting with ADS. This research will accelerate market readiness and the deployment of cooperative automated driving technology, while advancing safety, security, data, and artificial intelligence.

Beyond reducing traffic congestion and improving transportation safety, CARMA will support industry collaboration and expand on existing automation capabilities to reduce R&D time and advance cooperative automated driving technology. CARMA promotes collaboration and participation from communities of engineers and researchers to advance the understanding of cooperative automated driving using OSS and agile project management practices.

To learn more about the design and evolution of the CARMA Platform^SM and opportunities to collaborate with CARMA, please visit our open platform page, collaboration page, GitHub site, and Confluence site.