The Automotive Research Center is a U.S. Army Center for Excellence for modeling and simulation of ground vehicles led by the University of Michigan. The center is soliciting proposals for new or continuing work with a start date in 2018. These are single proposal with one PI who is responsible for project funds and reporting requirements. Co-researchers can be listed as co-PIs as necessary. The proposal text must show a coherent, concise description of motivation, objectives, approach, tasks, etc. and a clear connection of tasks to personnel supported. A single budget spreadsheet is expected per proposal, unless multiple schools are involved, wherein each school will need to submit a separate spreadsheet due to differences in rates.

The center will consider larger proposals with multiple researchers and topics. There must be demonstrable common goals and cohesive efforts. They are expected to also produce case studies for the annual review.

Due Date: October 16, 2017 by 5:00 p.m.

Send it to: William Lin, Automotive Research Center Project Manager <<choonhun@umich.edu>>

Templates: download from Ctools (instructions here). Please follow the naming and submission instructions detailed in the file.

Automotive Research Center staff will compile reports and proposals and seek feedback from TARDEC engineers during October. Based on this feedback, the ARC Executive Committee will make funding decisions in November for the Jan-Dec 2018 annual plan.

If you need more information contact the center’s director, Prof. Anna Stefanopoulou, or Alan Philipot (budget matters):

Alan Phlipot: aphlipot@umich.edu, 734.764.1837
Anna Stefanopoulou: annastef@umich.edu, 734.615.8461

Important elements for successful proposals

a) Projects should be organized around coordinated themes, so talk to your fellow ARC PIs, plan your proposed work. We encourage combining efforts for greater impact (see more on this below *). We expect the type of real and innovative collaboration that makes the whole bigger that the sum.Ideally, the collaboration should reach beyond each school border. The recent Autonomy-Mobility (Aug 15), and upcoming Autonomy-Power & Energy (Sep 15)workshops should inform your path forward.

b) Projects should have strong support from TARDEC and/or industry. Of course, the best way to demonstrate strong support is to secure additional funds that will leverage your project. Please include a letter of support stating the intended leverage in your submission and account for the leverage funds in your requested ARC-core budget.

Templates

The templates can be downloaded from your CTools-iARC /Resources / Templates / Proposals folder (see pdf for instructions). If you need a pre-populated Request for Continuation document, contact William Lin <<choonhun@umich.edu>> as soon as possible. To satisfy TARDEC contracting w.r.t. budget clarity, partner schools must use the non-UM -budget template.

Projects that are ending this year must submit a preliminary report using Part I of your continuation template. A final report and archival of deliverables will be required 30 days after end-of-project.