Talk Description
Institution: HMI Technologies - NSW, Australia
The Australian Government issued a Grant to HMI Technologies under their 5G Innovation Initiative Program to demonstrate innovative uses of 5G. This project focused on enhancing the operation of autonomous shuttle vehicles by addressing some of the challenges encountered in earlier AV trials including:
• Develop the capability to ‘extend the eyes’ of the vehicle by using real-time sensor fusion with roadside sensor infrastructure using 5G, to allow the vehicle to see around blind corners and get a better view of complex road and / or traffic scenarios. This aims to reduce the number of instances where human intervention is required to assist these vehicles to negotiate complex situations.
• Develop teleoperation functionality allowing the monitoring and control of the vehicle from a control room rather than on-board. 5G sends low-latency high quality video and sensor data from the vehicle to the control room and returns reliable low-latency control commands to the vehicle.
Another aspect of the project was with iMOVE Australia and La Trobe University (LTU) relating to the use of the vehicle by people with disabilities and the elderly. The premise for combining these areas of work is that the primary use of Low Speed AVs will be for first/last/only mile transport solutions. Disabled and elderly people will be key users of these services as they typically are not able to walk or ride even short distances and the project will:
• Develop a passenger user interface suitable for use by disabled people for integration with the Ohmio LIFT AV using on-board screens and smartphones and tablets.
• Bring people with various disabilities to ride on the vehicle, trial the developed passenger interface and provide feedback and suggest improvements.
The development of the passenger user interface by LTU and integration into the vehicle was a significant technical collaborative achievement between LTU and Ohmio. The experience of successfully doing this is now being used in Korea to develop Korean language interfaces with the Korean Transport Research Institute.
• Develop the capability to ‘extend the eyes’ of the vehicle by using real-time sensor fusion with roadside sensor infrastructure using 5G, to allow the vehicle to see around blind corners and get a better view of complex road and / or traffic scenarios. This aims to reduce the number of instances where human intervention is required to assist these vehicles to negotiate complex situations.
• Develop teleoperation functionality allowing the monitoring and control of the vehicle from a control room rather than on-board. 5G sends low-latency high quality video and sensor data from the vehicle to the control room and returns reliable low-latency control commands to the vehicle.
Another aspect of the project was with iMOVE Australia and La Trobe University (LTU) relating to the use of the vehicle by people with disabilities and the elderly. The premise for combining these areas of work is that the primary use of Low Speed AVs will be for first/last/only mile transport solutions. Disabled and elderly people will be key users of these services as they typically are not able to walk or ride even short distances and the project will:
• Develop a passenger user interface suitable for use by disabled people for integration with the Ohmio LIFT AV using on-board screens and smartphones and tablets.
• Bring people with various disabilities to ride on the vehicle, trial the developed passenger interface and provide feedback and suggest improvements.
The development of the passenger user interface by LTU and integration into the vehicle was a significant technical collaborative achievement between LTU and Ohmio. The experience of successfully doing this is now being used in Korea to develop Korean language interfaces with the Korean Transport Research Institute.