A public consultation on robotics and Artificial Intelligence consultation coordinated in 2017 by the European Parliament covered, among other things, also autonomous vehicles. Based on the results of this consultation autonomous vehicles have been identified as a policy area requiring most urgent action.

On January 15th 2019, the European Parliament has approved a motion calling for greater development of and more funding for research on automated vehicles, while members also emphasised the need to establish appropriate rules regarding safety and liability. The stakes are high, because, as rapporteur Wim Van de Camp (EPP; NL) said: “Europe has to be innovative, but faster. China and the USA are not waiting.”

Jack Stilgoe, associate professor at University College London, fellow of the Alan Turing Institute concludes that: “the uptake of self-driving cars at scale will require substantial changes to behaviours, infrastructures and the rules of the road, as well as improvements in the technology inside the cars, which means that the transition will be much slower than the enthusiasts predict.”

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Source: sciencemediahub.eu

Foto: shutterstock

NEVS is a leading Swedish electric vehicle manufacturer (and formerly Saab Automobile), is working on its own autonomous vehicle. A decision has been taken to use Phantom Auto’s teleoperation safety technology. This is with a view to manufacturing a safe electric autonomous vehicle.
With the new partnership, Phantom Auto, who are located in Silicon Valley, California, U.S, have a system that allows for a remote human operator to drive an autonomous vehicle when it encounters a scenario which the self-driving car cannot handle on its own. This enables the safe and rapid deployment of the car.

Through this, NEVS is aiming to become a pioneer in vehicle mobility and to challenge more established rivals. As Stefan Tilk, CEO of NEVS, comments to TechCrunch: “Our AVs must be able to drive from any point A to any point B, which means driving through all edge cases they experience on the road, such as inclement weather, road work, and any other road obstructions.”

Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com

Source of image: Waymo

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Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new system that allows self-driving cars to drive on roads they’ve never been on before without 3D maps. Called MapLite, the system combines simple GPS data that you’d find on Google Maps with a series of sensors that observe the road conditions.

This allowed the team to autonomously drive on multiple unpaved country roads in Devens, Massachusetts, and reliably detect the road more than 100 feet in advance. (As part of a collaboration with the Toyota Research Institute, researchers used a Toyota Prius that they outfitted with a range of LIDAR and IMU sensors.)

“The cars use these maps to know where they are and what to do in the presence of new obstacles like pedestrians and other cars,” says Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s CSAIL, in a statement. “The need for dense 3D maps limits the places where self-driving cars can operate.”

MIT explains how its system operates without relying on 3D maps: MapLite uses sensors for all aspects of navigation, relying on GPS data only to obtain a rough estimate of the car’s location. The system first sets both a final destination and what researchers call a “local navigation goal,” which has to be within view of the car. Its perception sensors then generate a path to get to that point, using LIDAR to estimate the location of the road’s edges. MapLite can do this without physical road markings by making basic assumptions about how the road will be relatively more flat than the surrounding areas.

Source: www.theverge.com

Source of image: http://news.mit.edu

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Leading the charge on self-driving trucks is TuSimple, a company with dual headquarters in Beijing, China, and in San Diego, California, plus a testing facility in Tucson, Arizona. TuSimple has identified port terminal tractors as an ideal first application for autonomous vehicles.

Port operations are perfect for autonomous vehicles for a number of reasons, but primarily because of the closed and controlled environment in the terminal grounds. Cargo ships are loaded and unloaded and the containers are stacked in neat blocks and closely tracked. Terminal facilities are closed to the public due to safety and customs issues. Roadways are wide and the full map of a port storage yard is comparatively simple. To top it all off, speeds inside the facility are kept low, which creates a perfect scenario for autonomous vehicles.

“This is a great place for autonomous trucks,” explained Chuck Price, Vice President of Product at TuSimple. “With a fully autonomous vehicle, it allows us to introduce our technology into the environment without any infrastructure change in the port. It’s a very quick introduction. They’re very excited about it, and we’re excited to be able to be a part of it.”

TuSimple has been operating a test fleet of autonomous port terminal tractors in China, and it’s gaining attention there.

TuSimple is not only unique in its choice of first applications. The company’s implementation of autonomous driving is also different from other approaches. Instead of relying on laser-based radar (LIDAR), the TuSimple technology is primarily based on cameras.

“The most visible difference between how we’re approaching the problem and how our competition approaches the problem is when we decided to build technology that is camera-centric as opposed to LIDAR-centric,” Price explained. “We use an array of 10 cameras currently, but that number is in flux as we complete our solution. We use radar as a secondary sensor. For the most part, our array of cameras delivers a superior solution to pretty much any other sensors.”

TuSimple also uses millimeter wave radar, but it maintains an array of cameras provides superior results.

The market for autonomous trucks in closed private facilities is large, but nowhere near as large as the market for self-driving trucks on the world’s highways. Like most autonomous developers, TuSimple has been testing its technology in Arizona, which has welcomed the process.

Source: www.digitaltrends.com

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Photos: tusimple

“I think we’re going to be really surprised by how many things change,” says Dr. Chris Gerdes, director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford University.

Driverless cars may not end America’s long-running love affair with the automobile. But with fleets of autonomous vehicles offering low-cost, convenient transportation that can be summoned in minutes, fewer people may want to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to own and maintain their own vehicle.

“We’re moving to a future where people don’t own cars,” says Dr. Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.

Driverless cars will bring big changes to city infrastructure. “We’ve made the world rather unfriendly for people who are walking and biking; cars have essentially won,” Gerdes says. But driverless cars could put the focus back on pedestrians, he says.

Driverless cars will also make for safer intersections, and perhaps even do away with traffic lights, which, of course, came about before cars themselves knew how to avoid collisions.

And with more cars spending more of their time on the road rather than parked, there will be less need for parking lots and parking garages.

It’s no secret that commuting to work by car is stressful, especially over long distances or in heavy traffic. But once commuters are no longer required to drive and are able instead to read, sleep, or simply relax on their way to and from work, even long commutes may seem acceptable, researchers from the MIT Center for Real Estate predicted in a 2017 report on trends in real estate in the U.S.

And so some workers may choose to live farther away from their places of work — decamping to distant suburbs or even to rural areas.

But given that urban centers will become more livable, the report states that other workers will choose to skip suburbia and instead move into city centers — where they could walk or bike to work.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com

Image: 2014 Rinspeed XchangE Concept Gallery

You can read the original article by Kate Baggaley here.

The 10-kilometre intelligent road section  offers the opportunities for testing automated vehicles and their related technologies in challenging road and weather conditions. The road is equipped to support the technical performance of the vehicles.

“Now we can see how automated driving affects the road network and the demands this places on winter road maintenance. The authorities, especially those which plan, build and maintain the road network, are now offered the opportunity to gain useful information about road maintenance and management”, says Reija Viinanen, Director of Aurora Collaboration.

In addition to the authorities, clients also benefit from this opportunity: “The road users’ services, which are based on real-time data gained about the road and road conditions, form the cornerstones of intelligent transport. Our objective is safe and smooth transport”, says Viinanen.

Source: www.liikennevirasto.fi

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The South Korean government opens the K-City in October this year. It is the world’s largest test bed for self-driving cars. In the K-City, self-driving car developers can repeat their tests with various scenarios and road environments.

In November last year, the government allowed trial self-driving car operation across the country. The opening of the K-City is to provide more assistance for the developers by offering the testing ground as large as a city. A large number of South Korean companies, such as SK Telecom, Naver and Samsung Electronics as well as automakers like Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors, are expected to gather in the area to refine their technology and services.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure & Transport of South Korea, the K-City is currently under construction based on the intelligent transportation system of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority. The facility with an area of approximately 360,000 square meters is scheduled to be equipped with bus-only lanes, expressways, zones for autonomous parking and so on.

Source: www.traffictechnologytoday.com

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