Uncrewed Systems Technology 047 l Aergility ATLIS l AI focus l Clevon 1 UGV l Geospatial insight l Intergeo 2022 report l AUSA 2022 report I Infinity fuel cell l BeeX A.IKANBILIS l Propellers focus I Phoenix Wings Orca

54 Lidar unit it just doesn’t make sense for us. “However, as the technology evolves and prices come down we’ll probably adopt it. The real-time 3D data density of Lidar point clouds could be really valuable for faster or bigger variations of our vehicle.” The forward-facing radar beneath the tower section is built using a Texas Instruments chipset, with in-house r&d having determined the ideal antenna configurations for the desired detection range (currently 100 m) for avoiding frontal collisions. The radar has a 180 º FoV, a refresh rate of 30 Hz, a range detection resolution of 10 cm, an angular resolution of 10 º and a velocity range of -30 to +30 m/s. Future, longer versions of the Clevon 1 might incorporate more radars for more safety, potentially up to three on the front, one on the rear, and a higher number on the sides. Appo notes that CAN FD is an easily extendable protocol for connecting more radars to the Nvidia computer, and since radars work through plastic, the team can mechanically integrate them beneath the vehicle covers without issue. Agur adds, “Our customers have also tested Chinese autonomous cars, and found that the Lidars on these actually didn’t work very well in snow, heavy rain, hail and so on: essentially they created a wall through which the laser pulses couldn’t effectively penetrate. Radars don’t have that problem, they work in all kinds of weather.” Driving safety and intelligence As SLAM would be laborious and unsafe for driving on roads, Clevon pre-maps all the potential driving areas itself using RTK-GNSS, and integrates that data with all the other information it can fuse on the static and dynamic content of the streets to be travelled, such as crosswalks and pedestrians. “That way the system knows where it most needs to be prepared to stop or yield on the roads,” Appo says. “Rough routes for the vehicles are calculated on a separate routing server that contains all the maps, and are then fused with our pre-mapped routes to output a route for each vehicle to drive. “For object avoidance, a lot of work went into prediction and behavioural analysis of how pedestrians, other vehicles and other dynamic objects will move. The vehicle creates a 4D collision map to predict possible future movements and stamps them for time. On the basis of those predictions it can slow down to prevent possible accidents.” The Clevon 1’s planning behaviours also integrate traffic laws, to comply with rules on safely giving way at intersections or crossings for instance. As Appo explains, “The Clevon 1 can automatically detect whether it is operating in a capable ODD [operational design domain] and act accordingly.” ODD describes the situation and environment where the vehicle is operating, including patterns in pedestrian densities, number of other vehicles and lanes, the presence and height of structures, and so on. As a final safety measure, the teleoperator can take over the control of the vehicle. “In closed areas, the Clevon 1 can therefore be run 100% autonomously,” Appo says. “But in major cities, with their complicated and dynamic driving situations, we’re currently running with 20% autonomy, 80% teleoperation. Pending ongoing technology refinements and the openness of regulators to road autonomy, we aim to get that latter figure to 50/50 in about 6 months.” Operating sites The teleoperators monitor or take control as necessary from high-end Linux desktop computers with AMD RDNA2 graphics cards and large, curving flatscreen monitors, specifically Samsung Odyssey CRG9 QLED Freesync units, as well as steering wheels, pedals and additional control interfaces from Fanatec. “At the operating sites we also have some very powerful in-rack routers handling the comms between the GCSs and UGVs,” Appo says. “All the teleoperation software is also fully custom made, including the 3D renderings, to lower the latencies as December/January 2023 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Digest | Clevon 1 The Clevon’s teleoperator stations are built using Samsung Odyssey CRG9 QLED Freesync monitors and Fanatec pedals and steering wheels