Scroll
down
Until late 2020, most companies were testing autonomous software on slightly modified existing “roadworthy” vehicle models. Our company changed that approach and invented and built an entirely new vehicle type, custom-built for autonomous delivery. As such, its roadworthiness needed to be assessed by the DVSA before it could be approved to drive on the roads.
In late 2020, our vehicle was approved by the DVSA and we launched a no human contact delivery road trial supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The trial involved delivering medicines from pharmacies to local residential addresses and care homes in Hounslow. The launch of our first road trials was live-streamed along with a panel discussion featuring Michael Dunkley, Head of Safety for CCAV, (the specialist division of the Department for Transport responsible for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles) along with leading experts from the retail and road transport sectors.
• Medical supplies were loaded onto our Kar-go self-driving • The vehicle then drove semi-autonomously to the recipient’s address. • On arrival, the hatch was released and the recipient could remove the medical supplies, So the only human contact was in the loading stage from the pharmacist. Our implementation included the use of our autonomous delivery vehicle, Kar-go, our self-driving operating system, as well as our first Command Hub integration, allowing the team to monitor the whole operation remotely from a nearby office building
Looking to the future, and with safety at the forefront of our minds, Academy of Robotics wanted to create an added layer of safety provision, which could ultimately take over from the in-vehicle safety driver. We therefore filed a patent for a remote Command Hub for self-driving vehicles and built the system and tested it during these road trials.
