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.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Running on empty
    May 2, 2018
    Drivers are an increasingly rare species on Europe’s commuter metros as unattended train operation is embraced. David Crawford takes a low-speed tour of the continent’s capitals to see what’s happening. Unattended train operation (UTO) is fast becoming the norm for Europe’s metros, on existing as well as new lines. November 2017 statistics published by the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) show the continent as having 28% of the global total of route km on lines operating at the ultimate
  • Nissan promises self-parking cars, traffic-jam pilots by end of 2016
    July 22, 2014
    Nissan Motor Corporation will introduce cars featuring an automatic parking system and traffic-jam pilot within the next year and a half, according to president and CEO Carlos Ghosn. “By the end of 2016, Nissan will make available the next two technologies under its autonomous drive strategy,” Ghosn told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “We are bringing to market a traffic-jam pilot, in which cars will have the capability to drive autonomously and safely on congested highways,”
  • Adaptive cruise control would suppress traffic instability
    March 20, 2014
    Professor Berthold Horn of Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes a modified adaptive cruise control could mitigate phantom traffic jamsthat occur for no apparent reason. The phenomenon of the phantom traffic jam is all too common: they appear for no apparent reason and, having caused frustrating delays for all travelers, evaporate for an equally mystical reason. Phantom traffic jams usually occur on busy highways and often take the form of repeatedly stopping and then accelerating up to near the
  • Demonstration of first German A9 motorway safety project
    November 10, 2015
    In the first project of the ‘digital A9 motorway test bed’ to show how vehicles on a motorway can share hazard information, Continental, Deutsche Telekom, Fraunhofer ESK and Nokia Networks have carried out a real-time demonstration of communication between vehicles via the Deutsche Telecom LTE cell network. The project, which aims to improve road safety and traffic management, involved upgrading Deutsche Telekom's existing LTE network at sections of the A9 motorway test bed with Nokia Networks’ mobile e