Posts Tagged: autonomous
Honda to test its Autonomous Work Vehicle at Toronto’s Pearson Airport
While many of the flashy, marquee mobility and transportation demos that go on at CES tend to be of the more… aspirational variety, Honda's electric cargo hauler, the Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV), could soon find use on airport grounds as the robotic EV trundles towards commercial operations.
Honda first debuted the AWV as part of its CES 2018 companion mobility demonstration, then partnered with engineering firm Black & Veatch to further develop the platform. The second-generation AWV was capable of being remotely piloted or following a preset path while autonomously avoiding obstacles. It could carry nearly 900 pounds of sutff onboard and atow another 1,600 pounds behind it, both on-road and off-road. Those second-gen prototypes spent countless hours ferrying building materials back and forth across a 1,000-acre solar panel construction worksite, both individually and in teams, as part of the development process.
This past March, Honda unveiled the third-generation AWV with a higher carrying capacity, higher top speed, bigger battery and better obstacle avoidance. On Tuesday, Honda revealed that it is partnering with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority to test its latest AWV at the city's Pearson Airport.
The robotic vehicles will begin their residencies by driving the perimeters of airfields, using mounted cameras and an onboard AI, checking fences and reporting any holes or intrusions. The company is also considering testing the AWV as a FOD (foreign object debris) tool to keep runways clear, as an aircraft component hauler, people mover or baggage cart tug.
The AWV is just a small part of Honda's overall electrification efforts. The automaker is rapidly shifting its focus from internal combustion to e-motors with plans to release a fully-electric mid-size SUV, as well as nearly a dozen EV motorcycle models by 2025, and develop an EV sedan with Sony. Most importantly, however, the Motocompatco is making a comeback.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/honda-to-test-its-autonomous-work-vehicle-at-torontos-pearson-airport-153025911.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Uber Eats starts offering autonomous food deliveries in Fairfax, Virginia
Starting today, Uber Eats customers in Fairfax, Virginia can get their next meal delivered by a robot. In an expansion of the company’s existing partnership with Cartken, Uber has begun offering automated deliveries in the city’s Mosaic District. With today’s announcement, a select number of the more than 40 restaurants in the area have begun transporting their food aboard Cartken’s six-wheeled robots. Among the restaurants participating in the pilot include Our Mom Eugenia, Pupatella and RASA.
Uber has been testing autonomous delivery robots in a handful of markets throughout the US. Last May, the company launched two pilots in Los Angeles with the help of Motional and Serve Robotics. More recently, Uber signed a 10-year deal with Nuro to use the company’s vans for autonomous deliveries in California and Texas. Cartken, it should be noted, also works with Grubhub to deliver food on college campuses. The firm’s robot uses NVIDIA’s Jetson tech, alongside cameras and sensors, to navigate streets and sidewalks. They can travel at up to six miles per hour and carry about two full paper grocery bags of cargo to their destination.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-eats-starts-offering-autonomous-food-deliveries-in-fairfax-virginia-100023523.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Hyundai says it’s the first to pilot a large autonomous ship across the ocean
Autonomous ships just took a small but important step forward. Hyundai's Avikus subsidiary says it has completed the world's first autonomous navigation of a large ship across the ocean. The Prism Courage (pictured) left Freeport in the Gulf of Mexico on May 1st, and used Avikus' AI-powered HiNAS 2.0 system to steer the vessel for half of its roughly 12,427-mile journey to the Boryeong LNG Terminal in South Korea's western Chungcheong Province. The Level 2 self-steering tech was good enough to account for other ships, the weather and differing wave heights.
The autonomy spared the crew some work, of course, but it may also have helped the planet. Avikus claims HiNAS' optimal route planning improved the Prism Courage's fuel efficiency by about seven percent, and reduced emissions by five percent.
As you might have guessed, the feat didn't quite usher in an era of zero-crew shipping. The other half of the trip still required human navigation, and most of the route was in the open sea. It would have been tougher for an autonomous system to control the entire voyage, particularly in ports where docking and packed waterways would pose additional challenges.
Avikus plans to commercialize HiNAS 2.0 by the end of the year. And even if fully AI-driven shipping is nowhere on the horizon, the company hopes its Level 2 autonomy will mitigate crew shortages, improve safety and reduce the environmental impact of seaborne transportation. The firm also expects to bring this navigation to leisure boats, not just giant merchant ships. Your next pleasure ride aboard a cabin cruiser or yacht might not always require someone at the helm.
Uber Eats is launching two autonomous delivery pilots today in Los Angeles
Uber Eats is launching not just one but two autonomous delivery pilots today in Los Angeles, TechCrunch has reported. The first is via an autonomous vehicle partnership with Motional, originally announced in December, and the second is with sidewalk delivery firm Serve Robotics, a company that spun out of Uber itself.
The trials will be limited, with deliveries from just a few merchants including the Kreation juicery and organic cafe. Serve will do short delivery routes in West Hollywood, while Motional will take care of longer deliveries in Santa Monica. "We'll be able to learn from both of those pilots what customers actually want, what merchants actually want and what makes sense for delivery," an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Uber will apparently charge for the deliveries from Serve. However, autonomous vehicle deliveries in California require a permit that Motional reportedly doesn't possess, so it appears that customers won't be charged for deliveries from their vehicles, for now. In addition, human operators will take control when near the drop-off locations "to ensure a convenient and seamless experience for customers," a spokesperson said.
Serve's robots, meanwhile, will mostly be able to operate autonomously, but remote operators will take control in certain cases, as when crossing a street.
Customers within specific test zones will have an option to have their food delivered by an autonomous vehicle and can track it as with a regular delivery. When the food arrives, they'll be able to unlock the vehicle with a passcode to obtain their meals, either from a Serve cooler or the backseat of a Motional car. "The hope is that [the trials] are successful and that we learn over the coming months and then figure out how to scale," Uber's spokesperson said.
Waymo sues to keep autonomous vehicle emergency protocols secret
Waymo has sued the California Department of Motor Vehicles. In a case first reported by The Los Angeles Times, the Alphabet subsidiary filed a complaint with the Sacramento County Superior Court on January 21st to prevent the agency from disclosing what it believes to be trade secrets.
At the center of the lawsuit is a public records request an unidentified party made to obtain Waymo’s driverless deployment application. Before sharing the requested documents, the DMV allowed the company to redact any sections it believed would reveal its trade secrets, including questions that were asked by the agency. When the DMV eventually forwarded the package to the requester, that individual or group challenged the redactions. The agency then contacted Waymo and invited the company to sue it to resolve the matter.
Some of the information Waymo wants to prevent from entering the public domain include details on how it plans to handle emergencies involving its autonomous vehicles. Another redacted section details the abilities of its Driver software to handle San Francisco’s tricky one-way streets and hills. The company began offering taxi service to a limited number of customers in San Francisco in August. Those vehicles operate with a backup human driver.
The company contends it has publicly shared almost all of the information contained in its application with the DMV. According to Waymo, the redactions involve technical details that touch on how it achieves the safety performance it has detailed in other public venues. Waymo claims that information could give a competitor an edge on it. The suit's purpose here is to either forestall or completely prevent the disclosure of the requested information. As TheLos Angeles Times notes, resolution for these types of cases can take years.
“Every autonomous vehicle company has an obligation to demonstrate the safety of its technology, which is why we’ve transparently and consistently shared data on our safety readiness with the public,” a spokesperson for Waymo told Engadget. “We will continue to work with the DMV to determine what is appropriate for us to share publicly and hope to find a resolution soon.”
The DMV declined to comment on the case, but said it's currently reviewing the complaint.
Hitting the Books: How autonomous EVs could help solve climate change
Climate change is far and away the greatest threat of the modern human era — a crisis that will only get worse the longer we dither — with American car culture as a major contributor to the nation’s greenhouse emissions. But carbon-neutralizing energ…
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Bosch is finally making LiDAR sensors for autonomous cars
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The Air Force is exploring AI-powered autonomous drones
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California issues its first approval for an autonomous ride service
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Postmates unveils its adorable autonomous delivery robot
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Volocopter will test its autonomous air taxis in Singapore next year
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DeepMind, Elon Musk and more pledge not to make autonomous AI weapons
Today during the Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the Future of Life Institute announced that more than 2,400 individuals and 160 companies and organizations have signed a pledge, declaring that they will "neither participate in nor suppo…
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Senators investigate safety procedures for autonomous cars
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Uber reportedly reduced the number of sensors on its autonomous cars
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Sony’s autonomous concept would make a great party bus
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Police report explains little about Uber’s autonomous wreck
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Uber wants to fly you to work in a small autonomous aircraft
Uber says it’s interested in launching a city-based air service to give riders access to faster modes of transport. But instead of using a good ol’ fashioned helicopter, it wants to develop a much quieter machine that can fly autonomously.
The post Uber wants to fly you to work in a small autonomous aircraft appeared first on Digital Trends.
iBubble, an autonomous drone camera, takes users under the sea
First came the camera. Then the underwater camera. And now, there’s the diving drone camera. As tech continues to reach new heights, we’re exploring new depths of the seas thanks to the iBubble, the autonomous underwater camera.
The post iBubble, an autonomous drone camera, takes users under the sea appeared first on Digital Trends.