Beverly Hills Developing Fleet of Driverless Vehicles...Shuttle residents around city...
Beverly Hills to Develop Autonomous Vehicles
12:19 PM PDT 4/15/2016 by Michael Walker
The driverless municipal shuttles are part of larger
program to upgrade the city's tech infrastructure.
The Beverly Hills City Council voted unanimously this
week to adopt a resolution to develop driverless vehicles that will provide
public transportation throughout the city.
The program is part of Beverly Hills mayor John Mirisch's
plan for a municipally owned fleet of autonomous vehicles that would function
as an on-demand car shuttle service to and from any address in the city.
Because it comprises only 5.7 square miles, "Beverly
Hills is the perfect community to take the lead and make this technology a
reality," Mirisch said in a statement announcing the program. "It is
now both feasible and safe for autonomous cars to be on the road."
Beverly Hills' plan to install a network of fiber optic
cable to provide high-speed internet access throughout the city will allow
future autonomous vehicles to communicate with the city's electronic grid and
with each other.
Deploying fully self-driving vehicles in an urban
environment is complicated by the immense amount of data that the cars' onboard
computers must analyze in order to avoid collisions with other cars and
pedestrians.
The current generation of semi-autonomous systems, such
as Tesla's Autopilot, rely on lasers, radar and visual data acquired through 3D
cameras mounted on the cars to navigate, stay in lanes and avoid collisions.
The systems work well in controlled-access driving, such as freeways and
parking garages, but falter when confronted with a city's chaotic vehicular and
pedestrian traffic.
The Beverly Hills autonomous vehicle program will be the
subject of public summit to be held this fall at the Wallis Annenberg Center
for the Arts and will include demonstration rides and panel discussions with
experts.
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