Robohub.org
 

SMART begins live public robocar tests in Singapore today

by
23 October 2014



share this:
SMART-Driverless-buggy_electric-bike_201014

SMART-NUS enhanced driverless buggy. The steering wheel has been removed and replaced with an in-vehicle touchscreen for alternate selection of destination. Researchers will shadow the buggy on electric bicycles during the demo.

Robocar R&D is moving fast in Singapore, and this week, the National University of Singapore (NUS) announced they will be doing a live public demo of their autonomous golf carts over a course with 10 stops in the Singapore Chinese and Japanese Gardens. The public will be able to book rides online, and then summon and direct the vehicles with their phones. The vehicles will have a touch tablet where the steering wheel will go. Rides will be free, and will take place Oct. 23-25, Oct. 30-31 and Nov. 1.

live283390_smartfmhi-res-16

This is not the first such public demo – the CityMobil2 demonstration in Sardinia ran in August on a stretch of beachfront road blocked to cars but open to bicycles, service vehicles and pedestrians. Where the Sardinia project offered only a linear route, the Singapore project press release includes maps showing that the route is non-linear. Both projects have very low maximum driving speeds of 10km/hour.

The Singapore project will also mix with pedestrians, but the area is closed to cars and bicycles. (They have previously demonstrated not just detecting pedestrians but driving around them – provided they stay still, but it’s not clear whether the current project includes that ability). There will be two safety officers on bicycles riding behind the golf carts, able to shut them down if any problem presents, and speed will also be limited.

Singapore is interesting because they have a long history of transportation innovation, and good reason for it. As a city-state, it’s almost all urban, and transportation is a real problem. That’s why congestion charging was first developed in Singapore. Other innovations have also been started there; for example, every vehicle in Singapore has a transponder, and they used for a variety of purposes including congestion tolling and seamless parking payment in almost all parking lots.

Six months ago I had the chance to visit A*STAR, Singapore’s government funded national R&D centre, as well as the car project at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Then in late August, I visited Singapore again to give an address at a special conference announcing a government-sponsored collaboration involving their Ministry of Transport, the Land Transport Authority and A*STAR. I had a chance to meet the minister and sit down with officials to talk about their plans, and at the conference, there were demos of vehicles, including one from Singapore Technologies, which primarily does military contracting.

In spite of its history, Singapore tends toward conservatism — and this might dampen their pace of innovation. While this joint project is a good start, I advised them that, in my view, private projects will be able to move faster than public sector ones.

The NUS project is a collaboration with MIT, involving professor Emilio Frazzoli.

A version of this article originally appeared on robocars.com.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.



tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,


Brad Templeton, Robocars.com is an EFF board member, Singularity U faculty, a self-driving car consultant, and entrepreneur.
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com is an EFF board member, Singularity U faculty, a self-driving car consultant, and entrepreneur.





Related posts :



Interview with Dautzenberg Roman: #IROS2023 Best Paper Award on Mobile Manipulation sponsored by OMRON Sinic X Corp.

The award-winning author describe their work on an aerial robot which can exert large forces onto walls.
19 November 2023, by

Robot Talk Episode 62 – Jorvon Moss

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Jorvon (Odd-Jayy) Moss from Digikey about making robots at home, and robot design and aesthetics.
17 November 2023, by

California is the robotics capital of the world

In California, robotics technology is a small fish in a much bigger technology pond, and that tends to conceal how important Californian companies are to the robotics revolution.
12 November 2023, by

Robot Talk Episode 61 – Masoumeh Mansouri

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Masoumeh (Iran) Mansouri from the University of Birmingham about culturally sensitive robots and planning in complex environments.
10 November 2023, by

The 5 levels of Sustainable Robotics

Robots can solve the UN SDGs and not just via the application area.
08 November 2023, by

Using language to give robots a better grasp of an open-ended world

By blending 2D images with foundation models to build 3D feature fields, a new MIT method helps robots understand and manipulate nearby objects with open-ended language prompts.
06 November 2023, by





©2021 - ROBOTS Association


 












©2021 - ROBOTS Association