Skip to main content

Finland working on autonomous trucks

As part of the European DESERVE project, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Iveco Finland and TTS-Kehitys are developing a new software platform which will bring autonomous driving features to trucks. The truck of the future will sense nearby obstacles and possible safety risks and inform the driver. The vehicle will also monitor driving behaviour and draw the driver's attention to possible hazardous situations. TTS is implementing and testing the safety equipment development platform. A driver mo
June 19, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
As part of the European DESERVE project, 814 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Iveco Finland and TTS-Kehitys are developing a new software platform which will bring autonomous driving features to trucks. The truck of the future will sense nearby obstacles and possible safety risks and inform the driver. The vehicle will also monitor driving behaviour and draw the driver's attention to possible hazardous situations.

TTS is implementing and testing the safety equipment development platform. A driver monitoring functionality developed by VTT based on eye tracking is also utilised. TTS will that the test results correspond to what would happen on real roads and can be applied in practice.

Iveco Finland provided a truck, with a very highly developed camera system, for the project. This is being complemented with a 360-degree camera system, three 3D cameras, nine short-range radars and three in-vehicle cameras. With these, the driver can obtain real-time information on obstacles and possible safety risks around the car. In addition, the in-vehicle cameras monitor the driver's attentiveness and driving behaviour.

The project, which began in 2012, will end in February 2016 and the first versions of the systems should be ready for installation in vehicles within two years.

Related Content

  • April 26, 2013
    ITS asset management matters
    Maintenance of on-road ITS kit needs to become more sophisticated; while new technologies can deliver better road maintenance. David Crawford investigates both sides of the issue "Good information is key to effective ITS asset maintenance,” says Ian Routledge of the Ian Routledge Consultancy (IRC), whose Imtrac (Information Management for TRAffic Control) system is poised for European expansion. Developed as an ‘intelligent filing cabinet’ for storing information about on-road equipment, the online database
  • February 1, 2012
    Intersection management, cooperative infrastructures - what next?
    What do recent vehicle recalls mean for future cooperative infrastructures? Anthony Smith takes a look. As ITS industry stakeholders converge on Amsterdam for the 2010 Cooperative Mobility Showcase, an unprecedentedly wide range of technologies will be on display demonstrating what might be achievable in the future from innovations based on Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications.
  • March 16, 2012
    Long range radar aids wide area traffic monitoring
    Applications of long range radar technology are demonstrating its effectiveness as a first line of defence for highway managers – adding greater resilience and capability to existing systems. Development efforts are bringing long range millimetric wave radar to the fore as a very useful tool for managers of highway networks. Application of radar for wide area monitoring in traffic management remains in its infancy. But recent projects are demonstrating how it can now serve to enhance detection of incidents
  • November 12, 2015
    Preventing connected vehicles creating disconnected drivers
    Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are evolving at a rapid pace – but drivers’ ability to cope with them is not and at some point the mismatch must be addressed. Probably the biggest challenge the transportation industry has ever faced.” That is how Dr Bryan Reimer of Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab describes the challenges posed by semi-autonomous vehicles.