Unmanned Systems Technology 019 | Navya Autonom Cab | Batteries | UGVs Insight | UAV Factory UAV28-EFI | Swiss Aerobotics Hummel | UMEX 2018 report | Antennas | Oceanology International 2018 report

24 Dossier | Navya Autonom Cab However, much depends on the results of planned trials, as a lot of people are waiting to see what the Cab can do. Navya plans to run three pilot projects during 2018 using pre-series vehicles – one in France and one in the US with Keolis, and one with the Royal Automobile Club of Australia – in addition to the demonstration with the prototypes in Las Vegas. Door dilemma One issue that has arisen with the prototypes is perhaps unexpected in a driverless vehicle: adapting it to markets that drive on the left, such as the UK, Japan, Australia and Malaysia. The problem is the door. To keep things simple, each prototype has a single large sliding door on the right, which is fine for countries that drive on the right because passengers can get in and out from the safety of the kerbside, but in countries that drive on the left the door would open into the traffic. Unlike the bidirectional shuttle, the Cab has a front and a back, so it cannot simply be turned around to solve this problem. Later versions will have two doors, one electrically operated and the other manual, Sapet says. In this way it will meet the certification requirements of countries that drive on the left as well as those that require two doors. Like the Shuttle, the Cab will be capable of Level 5 autonomy as defined by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and based on the SAE’s J3016 document. Level 5 assumes that the system’s performance is equal to that of a human driver in all situations and environments. However, the legislation to support this is not in place yet, as most jurisdictions require all road vehicles to have a human operator aboard, effectively relegating them to Level 4. “The way to achieve Level 5 is to prove that it works without anybody on board,” Sapet says. “There are some issues with the software and also the hardware because you need a really advanced capability to warn of failures in any of the vehicle’s safety critical systems. That is not so easy at Level 5 – you cannot rely on passengers to warn you of a problem! Another important difference between the two vehicles is that the Cab requires much more comprehensive 3D mapping of the streets on which it is expected to operate, and at a scale, accuracy and level of detail that is not yet available commercially. The company has therefore developed its own system, mounting cameras and Lidars on a manned vehicle like those used by Google and others to produce street-level map views that the Cab’s navigation system can compare with the outputs of its sensors to calculate its position independently of its GNSS. That means mapping all the routes before the Cab can operate on them without GNSS. April/May 2018 | Unmanned Systems Technology The single sliding door of the prototypes is to be joined in later vehicles by a second on the other side so that there is always a door on the kerbside whichever country it is used in (Courtesy of Navya) In the centre of the Cab is a long-range Lidar with a camera, flanked by two short-range Lidars, each near a camera. Behind the long-range Lidar are 3G/4G, GNSS-RTK antennas (Courtesy of Navya)