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22 W ith Autonom Shuttles already in production and in service, Navya is now developing a driverless six- passenger taxi with neither steering wheel nor pedals, indicating the company’s intention to achieve Level 5 autonomy. The first Autonom Cab prototypes were on their way back to the company’s base in Lyon, France, from a demonstration in Las Vegas when UST paid them a visit in late February. The Cab is the focus for what Navya has learned from development and fielding of the Shuttle and from the study of many experimental vehicles. Two key goals differentiate the Cab from the Shuttle: the first is to increase its speed to 90 kph from the Shuttle’s 25 kph, which will be done cautiously with planned experiments up to 50 kph first; the second is to develop a sensor suite that can cope with the greater complexities of routing and environment that come with taxi operation in a city. This cautious approach, CEO Christophe Sapet says, builds on that taken with the Shuttle, which since its launch two years ago has been used in more than 30 trial operations in cities and private sites around the world, including Paris’ La Defense business district where, for example, its speed was limited to 10 kph because of the need to operate among large numbers of pedestrians. Navya began developing the Cab at the beginning of 2017, revealing it in the November. Despite the greater complexity of a taxi operation compared with that of a shuttle bus and the more comprehensive sensor suite it demands, Peter Donaldson reports on the development of this autonomous taxi, which could soon be on our streets First to be flagged down? April/May 2018 | Unmanned Systems Technology One of the Autonom Cab prototypes undergoing recent trial in Las Vegas, conducted with fleet deployment partner Keolis (Courtesy of Navya)