Abstract: With the development of autonomous vehicles and the communication and computation infrastructure, it is expected to soon deploy Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) on public roads. However, before deployment at scale, there is a need for an assessment of the functionality and efficiency of CAVs for different use cases. This research develops a CAV testbed to serve as a platform for testing and evaluating connectivity and autonomous driving systems particularly in rural terrains. The proposed testbed consists of three electric vehicles with autonomous capabilities and the required components to make them connect. More specifically, these vehicles are equipped with LIDARs, RADARs, GNSS, and cameras to enable autonomous driving. The 5G cellular modem is used as a medium to enable real-time communication for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-could (V2C) communication. The software architecture, hardware architecture, and connectivity backbone are established to support this CAV testbed. The results of this study will contribute to the development of reliable and efficient connectivity systems, paving the way for the future deployment of CAVs.