Mercedes-Benz has been working with Bosch to put driverless taxies on the road. The test project has been underway since early this year with a test fleet of thirty S-Class sedan in America equipped with sensor arrays including long distance laser scanning LiDARs.
All thirty cars always a driver behind the wheel of the thirty test cars and they take over control if there is any emergency only. Most of the time the driver sits and monitors the cars reaction to traffic and the surrounding elements as it happens.
The project includes testing driverless commercial vehicles in the near future. Van, small trucks and even prime movers will soon be moving goods around our nation without a driver. This to me sounds a little scary if super smart hackers get into the system. What do you think?
PRESS RELEASE: Bosch and Daimler are joining forces to advance the development of fully automated and driverless driving. The two companies have entered into a development agreement to bring fully automated (SAE Level 4) and driverless (SAE Level 5) driving to urban roads by the beginning of the next decade.
The objective is to develop software and algorithms for an autonomous driving system. The project combines the total vehicle expertise of the world’s leading premium manufacturer with the system and hardware expertise of the world’s biggest supplier. The ensuing synergies should ensure the earliest possible series introduction of the secure technology.
The car comes to the driver
By introducing fully automated and driverless driving to the urban environment, Bosch and Daimler aim to improve the flow of traffic in cities, enhance safety on the road and provide an important building block for the way traffic will work in the future. The technology will, among other things, boost the attraction of car sharing. It will allow people to make the best possible use of their time in the vehicle and open up new mobility opportunities for people without a driver’s licence, for example.
The prime objective of the project is to achieve the production-ready development of a driving system which will allow cars to drive fully autonomously in the city. The idea behind it is that the vehicle should come to the driver rather than the other way round. Within a specified area of town, customers will be able to order an automated shared car via their smartphone. The vehicle will then make its way autonomously to the user and the onward journey can commence.
