Robotics & Automation News

Market trends and business perspectives

autonomous vehicles

Bosch and Daimler to pilot automated driving in California

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Bosch and Daimler have chosen in a city located in the San Francisco Bay in Silicon Valley, California, as the pilot location for a first test fleet developing fully-automated and driverless driving.

Bosch and Daimler will offer customers a shuttle service with automated vehicles on selected routes. Daimler Mobility Services is envisaged as the operator of this test fleet and the app-based mobility service.

The pilot project will demonstrate how mobility services such as car sharing (car2go), ride-hailing (mytaxi) and multi-modal platforms (moovel) can be intelligently connected to shape the future of mobility.

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Volvo Trucks autonomous vehicle to link logistics centre and Gothenburg port

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Volvo Trucks’ electric, connected and autonomous vehicle Vera will form part of an integrated solution to transport goods from a logistics centre to a port terminal in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The assignment is a result of a new collaboration between Volvo Trucks and the ferry and logistics company, DFDS.

The purpose of the collaboration is to use Vera in a real application, enabling a connected system for a continuous flow of goods, from a DFDS’ logistics centre to an APM Terminals port facility in Gothenburg, for distribution across the world.

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The cooperative car: Intuitively knowing what the car is planning

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Autonomous driving is going to be an integral part of mobility in the future. Mercedes-Benz considers empathy and trust to be central factors for the acceptance of self-driving vehicles.

Because for people to have trust in the machine, they must immediately and intuitively be able to recognise what an autonomous vehicle intends to do. Mercedes-Benz is conducting research into this “informed trust” with the help of the “cooperative car”.

The cooperative car is based on an S-Class, and features 360-degree light signalling. Turquoise lights on the roof indicate autonomous driving mode, and provide information on what happens next:

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Toyota Research Institute unveils P4 automated driving test vehicle

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Toyota Research Institute (TRI) showed the TRI-P4 automated driving test vehicle at CES last week. The P4 is based on the all-new fifth-generation Lexus LS flagship sedan and will be used in TRI’s two-track Guardian and Chauffeur automated driving system development.

The P4 has Lexus’ new generation of chassis and steering control technology, which provides greater agility and allows for more responsive and smoother manoeuvres during automated driving.

It has two additional cameras to improve situational awareness on the sides and two new imaging sensors―one facing forward and one pointed to the rear―specifically designed for autonomous vehicles. The imaging sensors feature new chip technology with high dynamic range.

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Honda shows its Autonomous Work Vehicle and latest robots at CES 2019

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Honda is showcasing a variety of mobility, robotics, energy management, and connected concepts at CES 2019, January 8-11, 2019, and featuring demonstrations of in-vehicle connected services in the all-new 2019 Honda Passport.

Honda Innovations, the Silicon Valley arm of Honda R&D, will debut new collaborations with startups and major brand partners through its open innovation programs, Honda Developer Studio and Honda Xcelerator.

The company is showing real-world testing scenarios of the Honda Autonomous Work Vehicle, a prototype off-road vehicle that is a combination of Honda’s all-terrain vehicle (ATV) and emerging advanced autonomous technology.

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Autonomous vehicles: A future without humans

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Automotive companies are showcasing driverless vehicles in a wide range of environments all around the world.

From busy, urban roads in overpopulated cities to remote, desolate landscapes where no human has ever set foot, autonomous vehicles are almost everywhere now.

Almost 400 companies are working towards making autonomous vehicles part of modern society, but the vast majority of their innovations are still in the testing phase, awaiting technical and regulatory approval.  [Read more…] about Autonomous vehicles: A future without humans

Continental and EasyMile launch new autonomous driving R&D team in Singapore

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A joint R&D team from Continental and EasyMile will begin work on solutions for driverless mobility in Singapore.

The new joint team’s focus will be to develop new technology centred on perception and deep learning and to prepare autonomous vehicle (AV) technology for tests towards safe deployment on private grounds and public roads in the Singaporean metropolitan area.

With a regulatory sandbox for AVs in place, Singapore has the flexibility to quickly adjust its regulatory framework to support the fast pace of development of AV technology while safeguarding public safety.

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Nvidia Xavier achieves milestone for safe autonomous driving

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Safety experts at German agency TÜV SÜD have assessed the development process for the Nvidia Xavier system-on-a-chip (SoC), the world’s first processor for autonomous driving, and approved it as suitable for building a safe product.

With the completion of this step, Xavier is one approval step away from being the most complicated SoC to demonstrate compliance with international safety standards.

Nvidia approached the assessment of Xavier as a three-step process. In April, TÜV SÜD deemed the processor’s safety architecture suitable for use in safety applications.

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Denso to open new Tokyo facility for automated driving technology

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Denso Corporation is to establish a new facility at Haneda Airport in Tokyo to develop and test automated driving technologies.

The facility, which is expected to be complete by June 2020, will feature a building and proving ground for mobility systems R&D.

This announcement follows Denso’s establishment of its Global R&D Tokyo facility in April 2018, an automated driving R&D office near Shinagawa Station in Minato City, Tokyo, to promote collaboration and open innovation with its development partners, which include automakers, universities, research institutes and startups.

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Autonomous vehicles will increase traffic congestion before ‘dramatically reducing it’, says report

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Introducing autonomous vehicles will initially increase traffic congestion before dramatically reducing it, according to a new report.

Arthur D. Little has published a real-world simulation analysis that demonstrates that switching to totally autonomous vehicles significantly reduces urban congestion by a factor of 10, but that mixing human and robot drivers together will increase traffic jams by over 16 per cent.

The micro-simulation was based on a major intersection in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, notorious for its evening traffic jams.  [Read more…] about Autonomous vehicles will increase traffic congestion before ‘dramatically reducing it’, says report