Auto-cars

 

A European project called CyberCars2 is building on EU-funded CyberCars technologies to make road-based automated transport systems.

An example can already be seen with the ULTRa system under construction at Heathrow Airport.

The proposals, developed by CyberCars, involve a series of sense, control and guidance technologies to enable vehicles to navigate the roads and avoid obstacles autonomously. CyberCars2 builds on these technologies to allow the vehicles to cooperate and communicate with each other.

“The main challenge we wanted to address in the CyberCars2 follow-on project was how to operate and coordinate several different vehicles at high throughput,” explained Michel Parent who directs the R&D programme into automated transportation at the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA).

“Efficient transport systems require vehicles to cooperate with each other. [They need] to be able to communicate and negotiate with each other and with the infrastructure itself. We wanted to make this happen automatically, too.”

“We have developed the routing layer so that vehicles can communicate even when they can't ‘see’ each other. We came up with the routing protocols to make it possible to do ‘multi-hop’ data exchanges between two vehicles on the move, by using a go-between, which could be another vehicle or part of the roadside infrastructure,” he added.

To test the transportation system, a fleet of six cybercars (an electric Fiat, Pandas and a Citroen Berlingo van) plus three unmanned buggies built by INRIA were ‘let loose’ on a figure-of-eight test zone circuit in La Rochelle.

Test drive

Meet the Role Models involved in testing new car designs.

You’ve read it. Now review it.

Back to top

Back to top