Nuro is partnering with CVS Pharmacy to deliver medicines using its autonomous vehicle.
Starting this month, the “first-of-its-kind partnership” brings Nuro into the health space as the startup utilizes its fleet of autonomous vehicles to deliver prescriptions and essentials across three zip codes in Houston, Texas.
Pharma is the third industry sector in which Nuro will introduce its autonomous vehicles.
Having the AI self-driving car know where to drop off human passengers is a puzzling problem not high on the priority list of developers.
Determining where to best drop-off a passenger can be a problematic issue.
It seems relatively common and downright unnerving that oftentimes a ridesharing service or taxi unceremoniously opts to drop you off at a spot that is poorly chosen and raft with complications.
Continue reading… “AI autonomous cars and the problem of where to drop off riders”
Self-driving Uber vehicles in a lot in Pittsburgh. One vision of the future sees fleets of cars hailed as people need a lift and less private vehicle ownership.
Fleets of vehicles roaming streets waiting to be hailed are more efficient. But the coronavirus has made people think twice about the future of car ownership even when autonomous tech arrives.
It was a difficult question even before the coronavirus pandemic hit: When self-driving cars eventually rule the roads, will Americans own their cars or make use of ride-hailing fleets?
The challenge is now threefold. Self-driving car technology had already reached a plateau, and getting to full Level 5 autonomy will be more difficult than many had thought. With the nation’s economy hobbled by the virus, investment is slowing. And to car owners, their private automobile is now a sanctuary, and it’s unclear how long that attitude will persist.
A CarGurus.com poll of 400 active car shoppers, conducted in May for this article, asked, “What is your overall opinion about the development of self-driving cars?” It showed 22 percent of customers were excited by the prospect. A survey of auto owners in 2019 showed 31 percent of them were excited for autonomous cars.
The question about the long-term future for the world’s cars is far from settled, and the experts (some of whom see disaster for the planet if people own autonomous cars as we own our cars now) differ sharply in their perception of where we’re heading.
Continue reading… “Who will own the cars that drive themselves?”
DARPA’s Sea Train concept hopes to enable a convoy of medium-sized unmanned vessels to travel across the ocean without refueling, before splitting up to conduct independent operations. (Courtesy of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
Imagine the following scenario.
Four medium-sized U.S. Navy vessels depart from a port along the United States’ coast. There’s no crew aboard any of them.
About 15 nautical miles off the coast, the four vessels rendezvous, autonomously arranging themselves in a line. Using custom mechanisms, they attach to each other to form a train, except they’re in the water and there’s no railroad to guide them. In this configuration the vessels travel 6,500 nautical miles across the open ocean to Southeast Asia. But as they approach their destination, they disconnect, splitting up as each unmanned ship goes its own way to conduct independent operations, such as collecting data with a variety of onboard sensors.
Once those operations are complete, the four reunite, form a train and make the return journey home.
This is the Sea Train, and it may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is investing in several technologies to make it a reality.
Continue reading… “Get on board the Sea Train”
Having an unoccupied vehicle deliver your food makes a lot more sense now.
Delivery robots helped deliver food and medicine in Wuhan, China, during the coronavirus-related quarantine.
In the United States, autonomous shuttles from the French company NAVYA have been repurposed as delivery robots to transport COVID-19 tests.
Most of these delivery robots still have human controllers keeping track of them and driving them when needed.
While the Wuhan district in China was under quarantine, news surfaced of robots delivering food and, later, medical supplies. Meanwhile, in the United States, the French company NAVYA configured its autonomous passenger shuttles in Florida to transport COVID-19 tests to the Mayo Clinic from off-site test locations. As the weeks of stay-at-home orders and recommendations slip into months, the delivery robots that were seen as a joke, fad, or nuisance have in some instances found a way into the public consciousness as important tools to combat the spread of coronavirus. The question is, will their usefulness extend post-lockdown?
Continue reading… “Robot deliveries might end up being common, post-Coronavirus Pandemic”
Most Consumers Believe They’ll Prefer Riding In Self Driving Cars In Ten Years
Autonomous vehicle startups Beep and Navya are using four driverless shuttles to transport coronavirus tests around the Mayo Clinic campus in Jacksonville, Florida.
Because the routes are isolated from public traffic, the shuttles can be operated without a human safety driver, which limits human exposure to the lab samples. Though even the most advanced self-driving companies require much more testing before the technology can be scaled, this example from Beep and Navya highlights a near-term upside of autonomous vehicles: minimizing human-to-human contact.
Starsky Robotics is a self-driving truck company that was the first company to run an unmanned semi on a public highway. It’s now shutting down though, and its co-founder has some unusually sensible and honest things to say about the industry, unusual only because the industry is stuffed with charlatans.
Stefan Seltz-Axmacher co-founded Starsky around four years ago, eventually equipping a fleet of three tractor-trailers with self-driving equipment, making them capable of navigating private truck yards and, once, nine miles of a Florida highway.
Those might seem like modest accomplishments, but they were almost intentionally so, Seltz-Axmacher told Automotive News in an exit interview of sorts. That’s because the company placed a big emphasis on safety, which, shockingly, wasn’t popular with investors.
While competitors expended effort adding machine learning-based features such as enabling trucks to change lanes on their own, Seltz-Axmacher said he threw resources into safety engineering. The company was the first autonomous trucking company to submit a Voluntary Safety Self Assessment to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
But a problem emerged: that safety focus didn’t excite investors. Venture capitalists, Seltz-Axmacher said, had trouble grasping why the company expended massive resources preparing, validating and vetting his system, then preparing a backup system, before the initial unmanned test run. That work essentially didn’t matter when he went in search of more funding.
ATLANTA – UPS ordered 10,000 electric delivery trucks from electric vehicle maker Arrival, in what it calls a move to accelerate electrification of the fleet.
It is the largest single order for electric vehicles from the shipping giant based in Sandy Springs.
The two companies are working together to develop electric vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems, including the potential for automated movement in UPS warehouses, technology that it will test starting this year.
UPS also announced that it is partnering with Waymo to test autonomous vehicle package pickups in the Phoenix area. UPS said Waymo’s Chrysler Pacific minivans will transport packages from UPS stores to a UPS sorting facility, with a driver on board to monitor operations. The technology allows the company to test subsequent pickups at UPS stores.
Continue reading… “UPS orders 10,000 electric delivery trucks, plans driverless truck test”
This week, nearly every major company developing autonomous vehicles in the U.S. halted testing in an effort to stem the spread of COVID-19, which has sickened more than 250,000 people and killed over 10,000 around the world. Still some experts argue pandemics like COVID-19 should hasten the adoption of driverless vehicles for passenger pickup, transportation of goods, and more. Autonomous vehicles still require disinfection — which companies like Alphabet’s Waymo and KiwiBot are conducting manually with sanitation teams — but in some cases, self-driving cars and delivery robots might minimize the risk of spreading disease.
DRIVERLESS: Autonomous vehicles are a solution to a shortage of nighttime bus drivers, officials said, with tests being conducted on Xinyi’s dedicated bus lanes
The Taipei Department of Transportation yesterday announced that it would start road tests for autonomous buses in May and allow city residents to take part in the trial services beginning in September.
The city government is looking to automated buses as a solution to the shortage of nighttime public vehicle drivers, officials from the transportation and information technology departments told a news conference.
Following the signing of a letter of intent between the city government and Turing Drive Co last year, the company submitted to the Ministry of Economic Affairs its “trial project for uncrewed vehicles with innovative technology.”
Continue reading… “Taipei to start uncrewed bus road testing in May”
Art Lebedev Studio’s Gruzovikus concept truck: fully electric, fully autonomous, extremely beautiful
You don’t normally think of freight tractors in terms of visual appeal: they are enormous machines meant to haul stuff all across the world, so whether they’re pretty or not is of no consequence.
But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be pretty, though. When it comes to good looks, this concept from Art Lebedev Studio takes the crown: there is simply no prettier truck cab out there, real or only in concept stage. This is no coincidence, either: the design team specifically set out to show the world that you can have both brawn and beauty in a single truck cab. And brains, to boot.
Meet Gruzovikus (which literally means truck in Russian), the electric, self-driving truck cab that hauls merchandise from point A to point B, and looking fabulous while doing it. It’s the result of 43 days’ of work for the team at Art Lebedev Studio, and it remains the most startling and impressive concept to this day, a few good months after it was made public.
Clearly, the future of transport is electric and autonomous. This truck has them both, with a good dose of good looks to go. It’s incredibly slim, to the point where it forms an L shape when viewed from the side. It has no windows or doors, because it doesn’t need any. All it has is a giant computer screen that houses the computer, the sensors and the cameras, and everything else needed to make long-distance travels safe.
Continue reading… “The Gruzovikus self-driving freight tractor is almost too beautiful for words”
Cruise Origin offers a self driving mini bus for cities
It seems these days that there is no shortage of startups promising new vehicles with electric motors and self-driving systems, and now the joint operation between GM and Honda, Cruise, has unveiled its driverless people mover sans any human controls.
The Cruise Origin, billed as a bus, was unveiled at the San Francisco event “Move Beyond the Car.” The underpinnings and drive system will be built by GM.
Continue reading… “Cruise Origin people mover has no controls, completely autonomous”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.