Location Based Systems

Continental will be presenting several examples of its new applications and services for handling performance, vehicle management, logistics, and automated driving at this year's International Motor Show Commercial Vehicles (IAA Commercial Vehicles) in Hanover. These include the ContiPressureCheck system which monitors the pressure and temperature of all tires consistently, even while driving, and the dynamic eHorizon, a sensor system that supplies vehicles with real-time information, which allows the h

South Australian Transport and Infrastructure Minister, Stephen Mullighan MP, has shown his support for the UK’s driverless initiatives during a visit to the Transport Research Laboratory’s (TRL’s) UK Smart Mobility Living Lab @ Greenwich. The visit was arranged to enable the South Australian Minister to learn more about UK innovations in connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). The Minister was given presentations on several UK CAV projects, including GATEway, MOVE_UK and Atlas, followed by a live demon

Swedish car maker Volvo Cars is to join forces with ride-sharing company Uber to develop next generation autonomous driving cars, alliance marks the beginning of what both companies view as a longer term industrial partnership. The two companies have signed an agreement to establish a joint project that will develop new base vehicles that will be able to incorporate the latest developments in autonomous driving technologies, up to and including fully autonomous driverless cars. The base vehicles will be

As vehicles become highly independent and begin to drive and react to traffic on their own, autonomous systems will aggregate and process data from a variety of on-board sensors and connected infrastructure, says ABI Research. This forces the industry to hit a hard reset on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) architectures, currently dominated by distributed processing and smart sensors. Automotive OEMs will need to adopt new platforms based on powerful, centralised processors and high-speed low la

Helsinki’s Metropolia University of Applied Sciences has begun a trial of self-driving buses on the streets of Helsinki as part of the SOHJOA-project coordinated by the university, which aims to provide opportunities for Finnish companies to develop new traffic automation products and services ideas. The two French-made EasyMile EZ10 buses have no steering wheel or pedals and run on virtual tracks that can be configured to accommodate sudden changes in demand. They can carry ten passengers and have a dri

The number of active fleet management systems deployed in commercial vehicle fleets in Australia and New Zealand was 0.5 million in quarter four of 2015 according to a new research report from the M2M/IoT analyst firm Berg Insight. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.0 percent, this number is expected to reach 1.1 million by 2020. The fleet management market in Australia and New Zealand is today influenced positively by a number of different market drivers including regulatory developm

Nissan is using an array of technical talent to develop its next generation autonomous vehicle, including automobile and software engineers, experts on sensor technology and artificial intelligence, computer scientists, production specialists an anthropologist. Melissa Cefkin, principal scientist and design anthropologist at the Nissan Research Center in Silicon Valley is playing a key role in the project, analysing human driving interactions to ensure that it is prepared to be a ‘good citizen’ on the ro

Ford has announced its intention to have a high-volume, fully autonomous vehicle in commercial operation in 2021. The new vehicle will be a Society of Automotive Engineers-rated level 4-capable vehicle without a steering wheel or gas and brake pedals. It is being specifically designed for commercial mobility services, such as ride sharing and ride hailing, and will be available in high volumes. SAE level 4 is one level below full automation and is defined as ‘mode-specific performance by an automated

Audi of America, in conjunction with Traffic Technology Services (TTS), is to launch its first vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) technology, traffic light information, as part of its suite of Audi Connect Prime services. The feature will be introduced later this year in select smart cities and metropolitan areas across the country through 2017 and beyond and is available on 2017 Audi Q7, A4 and A4 Allroad models built after 1 June 2016. Traffic light information, an Audi connect Prime feature, enables the

Plans to establish a connected vehicle network, known as Co-operative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), across Australia have taken a significant step forward with the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) intention to allocate the 5.9 GHz band by early 2017. The body representing Australia’s vehicle industry, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCIA), has welcomed ACMA’s release this week of a consultation paper outlining the proposed regulatory measures to support the na