Unmanned Systems Technology 036

surroundings and approaching objects such as cars or pedestrians. The GNSS receiver is installed on the shuttle’s roof, near the air-conditioning vents. As Garner notes, “The GNSS is the back end of plotting where we are. The first stage in our localisation algorithm comes from the Lidars and cameras recognising the shuttle’s surroundings based on the mapping information gathered ahead of time, correlating them with stored waypoint data, then matching the presumed location against the GNSS reading. That arrangement means we don’t need a very accurate GNSS coordinate feed to be able to navigate accurately.” If an obstacle is detected on or near the road ahead of the shuttle, the sensor suite first determines its speed and direction, in order to decide whether slowing to a stop or driving around is the best course of action. In the future, Aurrigo anticipates possibly doing away with the Lidars and performing all localisations and object sensing with cameras. The latter technology is more mature and far less expensive, and therefore easier to upgrade or replace than the former. “We have gone through several different sensors to arrive at the detection architecture we have now,” Garner says. “In our Milton Keynes trial, we used a very costly radar kit, which worked great, but we’d want the price to come down before we consider going down that route again.” The all-electric powertrain enabled an average operating speed of roughly 10 mph (16 kph), as selected for safety purposes given the speed of traffic and on-foot crossings for pedestrians on the resort’s roads. “The whole automotive market is heading towards EVs in terms of infrastructure, skills and tooling,” Garner adds. It wouldn’t have made sense for us to go for an IC engine design The GNSS is the back end of plotting where we are; we don’t need a very accurate GNSS feed to navigate accurately  World leading power density and reliability  Quality, consistency and repeatability  Robust CAN & PWM interface with rich telemetry  Runs cooler with efficient power electronics  Extensive documentation and engineering support  AEROSPACEMOTORCONTROLSOLUTION  FIELDPROVENONMULTIPLETIER1PLATFORMS WWW.CURRAWONG.AERO/VELOCITY