- Unmanned Driving: Driverless minibus begins trial run on university campus
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2018.05.14 12:45 ㅣ
130,761
We stay behind the wheel and head to Shanghai. The city is the first on the Chinese Mainland to push forward with road tests for self-driving vehicles. And it's finally paid off, as a driverless minibus is now being tested at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Xuhui campus. Song Wenjing takes a look.
This white, eight-seat driverless bus is powered by electricity. Its battery can last for a day after being charged for 5 to 6 hours. Teachers and students can scan a QR code at any of the four stops along a fixed route, and the bus will pick them up and take them to another stop.
The bus runs and makes turns automatically. When a car is coming in the opposite direction, it will slow down, and when there are obstacles in front, like cars or pedestrians, it will stop and restart once the way is clear. To ensure safety, the bus now runs at a maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour. Its speed will be increased in the future.
I've seen driverless cars reported in new stories for years, and it's my first time to ride in a real one. It's really interesting.
The bus can operate in adverse weather conditions thanks to a special positioning and navigation system developed by the university's Research Institute of Intelligent Vehicles. Unlike other driverless vehicles that rely on GPS, which can be affected by the surrounding environment and bad weather, the team from Jiao Tong University installed laser radar on the bus and used simultaneous localization and mapping technology to make it more stable.
YANG XIAOKANG, ASSISTANT DEAN AI INSTITUTE, SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY "In the future, we may be able to make an online payment with a single flash of the headlight on vehicles. Based on visible light communication, a QR code can be included in the new payment option. And we may soon start using autonomous driving in some industrial parks."
Yang said the cost of developing the driverless vehicles was almost one-tenth of the price of those developed in Europe, which makes it a better commercial proposition. But he also pointed out that there is a long way to go before the bus can leave the campus and run on roads, as the system needs to be able to cope with the scenarios on open roads.
This white, eight-seat driverless bus is powered by electricity. Its battery can last for a day after being charged for 5 to 6 hours. Teachers and students can scan a QR code at any of the four stops along a fixed route, and the bus will pick them up and take them to another stop.
The bus runs and makes turns automatically. When a car is coming in the opposite direction, it will slow down, and when there are obstacles in front, like cars or pedestrians, it will stop and restart once the way is clear. To ensure safety, the bus now runs at a maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour. Its speed will be increased in the future.
I've seen driverless cars reported in new stories for years, and it's my first time to ride in a real one. It's really interesting.
The bus can operate in adverse weather conditions thanks to a special positioning and navigation system developed by the university's Research Institute of Intelligent Vehicles. Unlike other driverless vehicles that rely on GPS, which can be affected by the surrounding environment and bad weather, the team from Jiao Tong University installed laser radar on the bus and used simultaneous localization and mapping technology to make it more stable.
YANG XIAOKANG, ASSISTANT DEAN AI INSTITUTE, SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY "In the future, we may be able to make an online payment with a single flash of the headlight on vehicles. Based on visible light communication, a QR code can be included in the new payment option. And we may soon start using autonomous driving in some industrial parks."
Yang said the cost of developing the driverless vehicles was almost one-tenth of the price of those developed in Europe, which makes it a better commercial proposition. But he also pointed out that there is a long way to go before the bus can leave the campus and run on roads, as the system needs to be able to cope with the scenarios on open roads.
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