VTT launches AV for snow and ice conditions, Finland

VTT Technical Research Centre (VTT) of Finland has launched what it claims to be the first autonomous car (AC) to have successfully driven on a real snow-covered road. It also reached speeds of up to 40 km/h during a trial on the Aurora E8 intelligent road in Muonio.
December 18, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
814 VTT Technical Research Centre (VTT) of Finland has launched what it claims to be the first autonomous car (AC) to have successfully driven on a real snow-covered road. It also reached speeds of up to 40 km/h during a trial on the Aurora E8 intelligent road in Muonio.


Called Martti and based on research from VTT’s AC Marilyn, the vehicle is equipped with cameras, antennas, sensors and three laser sensors that detect the environment ahead. By mid-January, it will also be equipped with communication modules which are designed with the intention of communicating with digital transport infrastructure.

To enhance the car’s capacity to function on slippery road surfaces, VTT will begin changing the wavelengths of the optical components, increasing the resolution of the radar, and building more intelligence into the sensors’ software.

Matti Kutila from VTT’s RobotCar Crew, said: “When in spring 2017 we, the researchers, taught the automated car Marilyn to drive, this autumn it has been teaching us on how to make Martti such that it can get along with its spouse, and follow GPS and positioning information on its route. Martti has been designed for demanding weather conditions and Marilyn shines as the queen of urban areas.

“We already have at our disposal an intelligent roadside unit, capable of feeding local information for the insatiable needs of Martti and Marilyn. This cart dubbed Marsu contains measuring devices for friction data and a communications module serving as a base station. Furthermore, next Spring one of our vehicles can also be spotted in forest environments, when Marilyn and Martti get a new friend capable of tackling all terrains,” Kutila added.

For more information on companies in this article

VTT

Related Content

  • Deaths of US pedestrians rise sharply, says GHSA report
    April 2, 2019
    Pedestrian deaths across the US have risen to their highest number in nearly 30 years. Many factors are responsible - including the rise and rise of SUVs - according to a worrying new GHSA report ore pedestrians died on US roads last year than in any year since 1990. The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) suggests that 6,227 pedestrians were killed in 2018 – a 4% increase on 2017. Pedestrian deaths as a percentage of total motor vehicle crash deaths increased from 12% in 2008 to 16% in 2017, whi
    Read More
  • Remote remedies help US authorities identify bridge deficiencies
    September 6, 2017
    Every day 185 million vehicles – cars, trucks, school buses, emergency response units - cross one or more of America’s 55,710 'structurally compromised' steel and concrete road bridges, the highest concentration of which are in Iowa (nearly 5,000), Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Nearly 2,000 of these crossings are located on interstate highways, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's recent analysis of the US Department of Transportation's 2016 National Bridge Inventory.
    Read More
  • Volvo addresses blind-side turns
    May 18, 2012
    Volvo has developed a system that aims at solving the problem of the truck driver's blind spot on the passenger side and the results of the research were demonstrated yesterday in the Intersafe 2 EU project in Wolfsburg, Germany. In Europe, between 30 and 60 per cent of all accidents resulting in injuries occur at intersections. Intersafe 2, an EU-funded project, aims at developing and demonstrating a Cooperative Intersection Safety System (CISS) that is able to improve traffic safety at road junctions by a
    Read More
  • Idris paves the way for loop based speed enforcement
    February 1, 2012
    With the Idris system now validated as a speed verification tool, the way is open for loops to be used in more complex enforcement applications. Diamond Consulting Services (DCS), developer of the Idris inductive loop-based vehicle detection and classification system, has recently successfully conducted validation trials which, the company says, open the way for Idris to be used for speed verification and loop-based sensors to be used for more complex applications such as speed-on-green and differential spe
    Read More

Highlighted Content