Skip to main content

Proterra begins autonomous bus program in the US

Heavy-duty electric transportation specialist Proterra is to participate in an autonomous bus trial with the University of Nevada, Reno and its Living Lab Coalition partners which aims to deal with real road conditions from the perspective of public transit systems. It will also , and underline the most challenging aspects related to mass transportation, such as dense and dynamic environments, degraded conditions and a need for swift emergency response. The pilot will also explore a new set of robotic perc
May 3, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

Heavy-duty electric transportation specialist Proterra is to participate in an autonomous bus trial with the University of Nevada, Reno and its Living Lab Coalition partners which aims to deal with real road conditions from the perspective of public transit systems. It will also , and underline the most challenging aspects related  to mass transportation, such as dense and dynamic environments, degraded conditions and a need for swift emergency response.

The pilot will also explore a new set of robotic perception algorithms that are required to address these conditions and focus on tight cues from multi-modal sensors and new multi-modal localisation and mapping. Rather than solely detect traffic, the Living Lab will focus on predicting traffic flows and plans to enhance safety. The University's current work focuses on the problems of vehicle perception, navigation control, path planning and vehicle-to-vehicle as well as vehicle-to-infrastructure research.

The Living Lab program will include three main phases of research and development: data collection, vehicle instrumentation and intelligent transportation system assessment; data mining, communications and algorithms development; and licensing and commercialisation. 

Related Content

  • Autonomous vehicles – saviour and threat, says report
    November 1, 2016
    A new report from IDTechEx Research notes that autonomous vehicles need no pilot, not even one in reserve. Many truly autonomous vehicles are unmanned mobile robots prowling everywhere from the ocean depths to nuclear power stations, the upper atmosphere and outer space. They create billion dollar businesses such as aircraft and airships aloft for five to ten years on sunshine alone carrying out surveillance or beaming the internet to the 4.5 billion people who lack it. Independence of energy and electri
  • GSSI partners with MIT Lincoln Laboratory to develop LGPR for autonomous vehicles
    September 11, 2017
    US-based Geophysical Survey Systems (GSSI), manufacturer of ground penetrating radar (GPR) equipment, has entered into a licensing agreement with Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory to build and sell commercial prototypes of their localised ground penetrating radar (LGPR) system, which helps autonomous vehicles navigate by using subsurface geology. The partnership will make prototype systems available to the self-driving vehicle industry.
  • Real time active traffic management improves travel times
    July 17, 2012
    Traffic management centres (TMC) have traditionally served to provide surveillance and responses to traffic incidents and recurring and non-recurring changes in road networks. Typically, a TMC collected field data from the roadway and transit infrastructure and provided the integration necessary for operators to see what was happening and then coordinate a response. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) guided operators on how to respond to a given situation. It eventually became impractical for TMC operat
  • Keeping a watching brief over traffic flows
    March 11, 2015
    Monitoring traffic flows is set to become an even bigger challengebut a revolution in camera technology can help, as Patrik Anderson explains. By 2025 almost 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas and in those cities there will be an estimated 6.2 billion private motorised trips every day. In order to manage this level of traffic growth, traffic management centres (TMCs) will need to both increase their monitoring capabilities and be able to detect traffic problems quickly, efficiently and r