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NEW TECHNOLOGY
Gateway to an automated transport future
working on their laptops as their vehicle inches forward in the Monday morning rush hour. If all of this sounds like science fiction, then you need to update your library, because autonomy is coming. Indeed many top end cars already
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have much of the equipment and technology required for self-driving installed, they are just waiting for legislation and the buying public to catch up.
But while companies like Amazon
are trialling drones to make last-mile parcel deliveries, what of vans? Are we ready for the self-driving delivery van, communicating directly with customers that their groceries or parcels are waiting at street level?
elf-driving cars, truck drivers relaxing in the passenger seat while their vehicle platoons along the motorway, business drivers
Okay we are still some way from this, but again, it is not that far away. TRL (Transport Research Laboratory) has been leading the GATEway Project in Greenwich, south London for the last two years. Working with a host of interested parties, the £8m GATEway (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment) project has been working to understand and overcome the technical, legal and societal challenges of implementing automated vehicles in an urban environment. This has mainly focussed on carrying
people, including the use of driverless pods at the nearby O2 area. More recently though the project has been looking at last-mile deliveries. Working with Ocado Technology and using vehicles developed by Oxbotica with its Selenium autonomy software, the GATEway team has trialled deliveries
within the Royal Arsenal Riverside development at Greenwich. The CargoPod is an autonomous
electric van with eight automated storage boxes that has been designed for the project. Ignore the fact that the vehicle has two people sitting in it, Oxbotica used an existing electric van to base its autonomous technology on and current rules insist that a ‘driver’ is present to take over control if required. The van is however driving itself
around the housing development, using Oxbotica’s real-time navigation, planning and perception software. When it arrives at the customer’s premises the designated pod lights up and opens using a code sent to the customer. “For us the GATEway trial is all about
last-mile deliveries,” said David Sharp, head of Ocado Technology. Continued overleaf
VanUser August 2017 9
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