The GATEway Project (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment) is to launch its open public trial of driverless pods this autumn. The autonomous pods will provide first- and last-mile transportation around the Greenwich Peninsula in the UK capital. For the next phase, Fusion Processing will provide sensing and control equipment on the brand new pods that are being built by Westfield Sportscars.
The pods are based on the original Heathrow Airport platform pod design and have been updated for use in first- and last-mile transportation operational environments.
Simon Tong, TRL (Transport Research Laboratory), technical lead on the project, said, “GATEway has always been focused on exploring public perception and understanding of driverless vehicles. With Fusion joining the team, GATEway is in a unique position to let the public interact with three very different autonomous control systems during our urban trials.
“Each of our autonomy providers – Fusion Processing, Oxbotica and Gobotix – are great British success stories, and together with Westfield, they represent the diversity of driverless expertise in the UK.”
In April this year, a hundred members of the public were given an opportunity to ride in the first prototype driverless pod in Greenwich powered by Oxbotica’s Selenium autonomous control system.
In the next phase of the project, using Fusion Processing’s autonomy system, the GATEway Project intends to transport hundreds more people with a fleet of new Westfield pods based at the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
Dr Graeme Smith, CEO of Oxbotica, said, “It was an amazing opportunity for us to step into the GATEway project and deploy our Selenium autonomy system into the prototype pod and demonstrate it so successfully in research trials conducted by the Royal College of Art and TRL. We wish Westfield and Fusion well as they take their product closer to a production phase.”
More on the GATEway Project in the November 2016 issue of Automotive Testing Technology International.
August 11, 2017