Delphi to Begin Testing On-Demand Robot Taxis in Singapore
Delphi to Begin Testing On-Demand Robot Taxis in Singapore
By Keith Naughton July 31, 2016 — 9:01 PM PDT
Three-year pilot program seeks solution to growing
gridlock
Goal is to provide service by 2019 ‘with no driver in the
car’
Delphi Automotive Plc, the vehicle-electronics supplier
that last year conducted the first coast-to-coast U.S. demonstration of a
self-driving car, will begin testing autonomous autos in Singapore this year
that may lead to robot taxis by the end of the decade.
The test will involve six autonomous autos, starting with
the modified Audi Q5 the supplier used last year to travel from San Francisco
to New York in self-driving mode. In Singapore, the cars initially will follow
three predetermined routes and by 2019 will range freely based on customer
requests, without a driver or a human minder, according to Glen DeVos, a Delphi
senior vice president.
“We actually will have point-to-point automated mobility
on demand with no driver in the car,” he said at a briefing with reporters at
Delphi’s Troy, Michigan, operations base. “It’s one of the first, if not the
very first, pilot programs where we’ll demonstrate mobility-on-demand systems.”
Singapore’s Land Transport Authority chose Delphi for the
test as the city, like congested urban areas globally, looks to driverless
vehicles to address growing gridlock. It asked Delphi to provide robot rides to
get commuters to mass-transit stations so fewer cabs will be clogging the
roads, DeVos said. Automakers are pouring money into developing autonomous cars
as more than 9 billion people are expected to move to megacities over the next
25 years. Self-driving cars moving in harmony are expected to eventually ease
congestion and make roads safer.
“Singapore is a small island and right now for the
individual to get to the mass-transit systems, it’s not easy,” DeVos said. As a
technology hub, the city is “really trying to lead the world in addressing
urban congestion.”
Delphi plans to announce similar pilot programs in the
U.S. and Europe later this year, DeVos said.
On the Singapore project, Delphi will work with several
technology partners, which he declined to name. For its cross-country
demonstration last year, Delphi used high-speed computing technology from
Ottomatika Inc. and Nvidia Corp., as well as cameras from Mobileye NV, to help
the vehicle quickly make complex decisions, such as timing a highway merge or
calculating the safest way around a slow-moving vehicle.
Eliminating Drivers
Besides providing the driverless vehicles, Delphi will
develop software that lets commuters call them. Initially, the cars will travel
at slow speeds along predetermined loops of about 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers),
with a human driver ready to take the wheel if needed, DeVos said.
In 2018, Delphi will begin running tests without the
driver, which will lead to removing the human minder entirely by 2019, he said.
“The no-driver scenario won’t be open to the general
public,” DeVos said of the 2019 testing. “It will be for a controlled group of
people.”
If all goes as planned, the next phase will be deploying
fully autonomous cars without steering wheels for commuters to hail by 2022, he
said.
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