Issue 37 Unmanned Systems Technology April/May 2021 Einride next-gen Pod l Battery technology l Dive Technologies AUV-Kit l UGVs insight l Vanguard EFI/ETC vee twins l Icarus Swarms l Transponders l Sonobot 5 l IDEX 2021 report

52 Insight | UGVs autonomy company Sensible 4, which built the vehicle and developed its software, and Japanese firm Muji, which contributed to the vehicle design. The Gacha is a 10-seat vehicle powered by an all-electric four-wheel drive, with a top speed of 40 kph and upwards of 100 km of range between charges; fast DC charging and wireless charging are available as options. Ismailogullari adds that Metropolia owns a Navya Arma that has been used in three different pilots, so the vehicle could also play a part in future trials or associated research. The process of selecting and procuring vehicles for the project has included 70 different requirements, largely to comply with EU procurement regulations, although some were optional. These related to topics such as battery life, autonomous capabilities, fleet management, maintenance requirements and various more functional areas as well as other legal, safety and commercial considerations. Once the shuttles have been procured, adjustments and tests are typically performed on them to ensure their safe operation in the trial cities. This has included EMC testing and installing seat belts, among other modifications. Honkonen notes, “We’ve seen definite improvements in autonomous shuttle technology over the years, but for business models to work, there needs to be greater tangible cost savings over the course of operations if commercial fleets are be implemented en masse. “Productivity improvements could make that happen though, if a single operator at a GCS can manage a fleet of shuttles, enabling an intuitive and convenient routine service for city residents while remotely handling all sorts of exceptional situations.” Food delivery The pandemic has forced huge numbers of restaurants to shut for the time being, while grocery stores have had to impose limits on the number of people who can enter at a time, so the number of food deliveries direct to people’s homes has naturally risen considerably. That said, there is a major gap between the number of delivery workers available and the demand for home-delivered meals and groceries. Given the growth in remote working – which might not be entirely reversed after the pandemic is over – this niche can be expected to remain important for some time. Starship Technologies is poised to be a key player here, as its autonomous delivery UGV has been trialled and tested in commercial operations in about 100 cities around the world. Its UGV is a battery-electric six-wheeler measuring about 69 x 56 x 56 cm. It has an empty weight of 20 kg and a compartment that can hold up to 10 kg – be it boxed meals, groceries, parcels or other items requiring last-mile hand-off. It has a top speed of 6 kph and an operating radius of 4 miles (6 km). It navigates autonomously using a computer vision and GPS fusion that is accurate to 2 cm, which are combined with proprietary mapping techniques for navigational accuracy. Andrew Curtis, UK operations manager at Starship, says that in order to start delivering at a new location, the UGVs map the area once, using either a single vehicle or multiple ones simultaneously. They can then navigate autonomously around that area. The vision system works via a suite of 10 EO cameras – eight at the front and two at the rear, to provide 360 º vision – mounted at various angles for perceiving its surroundings. Also, onboard radars and ultrasonics generate further data that is fused via the UGV’s neural network- based algorithms to produce what the company calls its “situational awareness bubble” for detecting objects and avoiding collisions with them. April/May 2021 | Unmanned Systems Technology A staff member of Bridgewater State University, Massachusetts, takes a food delivery from one of Starship’s UGVs (Courtesy of Starship Technologies)