The Future of Mobility
Become the next inventor in automated technologies. Join Kettering University at the forefront of the automotive industry and help mobilize the future.
Want to Help Drive the Future of Transportation? Explore These Automotive Engineering Programs.
Self-driving cars and delivery vehicles. Unmanned aircraft. Intelligent driving features. Even just a few years ago, these capabilities were unrealistic, if not unimaginable. But to inventors and visionaries, these weren’t just possibilities—they were the next reality.
If working in new energy, engineering user interfaces, or developing the next solar-powered bike or electric motorcycle sound exciting to you, a degree related to advanced mobility can help you bring your vision to life.
Defining the Future of Transportation
“Advanced Mobility” is a broad term encompassing how we power—and improve—transportation. Advanced Mobility includes everything from self-driving vehicles to software programs that improve battery life for electric cars. They can also refer to lightweight and anticorrosive nanotechnological materials used to make vehicles faster and more efficient. Advanced Mobility can even include measures that reduce traffic congestion, such as AI systems that help traffic operators improve the timing of traffic signals.
Why Study Advanced Mobility?
Supercharge Your Engineering Career
We’ve witnessed a rush of autonomous and electric vehicles hitting the market in just the past few years, from self-driving cars to electric scooters. The innovation has resulted in some $200 billion being invested in the industry, making advanced mobility one of the fastest-growing fields—and an area of great opportunity for the next generation of engineers. If you’re interested in electric, autonomous or specialty vehicles, careers in these sectors are likely to grow.
Help Solve Today’s Most Pressing Issues
Beyond career opportunities, studying advanced mobility can help you invent new products and engineer features that help address safety, sustainability and economic concerns. Whether you want to build a new vehicle from the ground up or identify ways to make the technology we rely on every day even better, learning advanced mobility engineering can help you get there.
Careers in Advanced Mobility
The future of transportation is full of possibilities, especially for inventors and those interested in AI, specialty vehicle engineering and smart mobility. The Michigan Mobility Institute estimates that the United States will need 45,000 new mobility engineers in the next decade. Michigan alone will need 12,000 new mobility engineers.
Check out some of the top engineering careers in advanced mobility.
Mobility Systems Engineer
Help ensure that the next electric vehicle is as safe as it is functional. Mobility systems engineers work in multi-dimensional roles that could include research, design, technical mentorship and performance testing for new vehicles and features such as braking systems, speed sensors and network connectivity.
Machine Learning Engineer for Autonomous Vehicles
Take autonomous vehicles to the next level by improving AI and enabling self-driving cars to make decisions in their environments. Among their many responsibilities, machine learning engineers work with data from LiDAR, GPS, camera systems and sensors to develop algorithms for self-driving vehicles
Robotics Engineer for Self-Driving Vehicle
Design, create and test out automated cars, trucks, delivery vehicles and even trains. Robotics engineers bring together mechanical, computer and electrical engineering to build vehicles with new—and more human—capabilities.
Programs for Students Interested in Advanced Mobility
Undergraduate Programs
Kettering offers a variety of paths to a career in mobility technology. Browse our undergraduate automotive technology degrees and related engineering programs.
Graduate Programs
For undergraduate degree holders, Kettering University offers several specialized automotive technology degrees and other programs.
Engineer Your Future in Advanced Mobility
Learn Hands-on in the Lab
Learn autonomous, electric and other specialty vehicle engineering hands-on in our state-of-the-art labs. Kettering developed these learning facilities to help faculty and students discover solutions for the future of smart mobility transportation.
Learn more about our labs.
Compete on Student Teams
Work with your classmates to design self-driving or electric vehicles. You can enter competitions from General Motors and other leading companies to see how your inventions match up against those of students at other universities.
Learn more about student teams.
Learn the Human Side of Advanced Mobility
At Kettering, we not only teach and research the design of autonomous and electric vehicles; we also seek ways to improve human interaction with these vehicles.
In our research labs, you’ll focus on advances in automated driving and multimodal user interface designs—and you’ll learn to evaluate how humans and systems interact.
Learn more about the human side of mobility.
Specialty Vehicle Engineering and Advanced Mobility News
Kettering Professor Part of Team Awarded $1.2 Million NSF Grant
Kettering University Computer Science Associate Professor Dr. Yunsheng Wang is trying to make it safer to drive.
CNXMotion Hosts Its Technology Ride and Drive Event at Kettering’s GM Mobility Research Center
The track at the Kettering University GM Mobility Research Center (MRC) is getting a lot of action. Grand Blanc-based CNXMotion used the facility to show off its latest motion control technologies to invited guests, including partner companies — Continental Automotive and Nexteer Automotive — potential customers, government officials and strategic partners.
GM's Features Dude & the 2022 Electric Hummer
Mike Colville ('00, EE), one of GM's leading performance engineers more commonly known as the “features dude,” discusses the development of one of the most audacious road vehicles ever developed, GM’s 2022 Electric Hummer. Colville also addresses the extreme off-road career where he gained his skills.
Kettering University Professor, Grad Students Test Automatic Emergency Brake Systems
Assistant Professor Dr. Ahmed Mekky and his team of graduate students are discovering the limitations of vehicles’ automatic emergency braking systems to help owners better understand their vehicles.
Alum Uses Skills Learned at Kettering to Enhance Vehicle Cybersecurity
Kristine Pankow (’16, EE/ME) wanted a job that allowed her to apply her technical skills to serve the needs of others. She found that job at General Motors.
Kettering University AutoDrive Team, Advisor Take Home Awards in First Year of Challenge
The Kettering University AutoDrive Team, Bulldog Bolt, brought home more awards after wrapping up Year One of the AutoDrive II Challenge at MCity in Ann Arbor. The team placed second in the Dynamic Obstacle Challenge, and the team’s faculty advisor, Dr. Diane Peters, received the inaugural Advisor of the Year award.
IGVC Team Wins Multiple Awards in Its Second Year Competing
The KU Bulldog Intelligent Ground Vehicle (IGVC) Competition Team turned in a "great performance" in just its second year participating in the four-day IGVC event at Oakland University. The team placed second in the Self-Drive Challenge, earning a grand award Lescoe Trophy, and fourth in the Self-Drive Design Competition.
Kettering University to Host Innovative Vehicle Design Competition
Sixty-five middle and high school teams competed at Square One Education Network’s 15th Annual Innovative Vehicle Design (IVD) Challenge at the Kettering University GM Mobility Research Center (MRC).
Engineer the Next Generation of Transportation
Request information about the programs that interest you or apply to an advanced mobility degree program today.