SA BUREAU CHIEF
OCTOBER 28, 2018
A claimed “world-first” self-driving vehicle demonstration conducted in a section of Adelaide’s CBD has been hailed a success by a global leader in wireless technology who says the trial proves Australian streets can be made safer.
The demonstration — backed by the South Australian government — simulated a real-life situation where a car failed to give way at a city intersection. Adelaide-based company Cohda Wireless ran the testing, which connects cars to other vehicles even when they are not in line of sight.
During yesterday’s demonstration a connected autonomous vehicle and a vehicle controlled by a human approached a red-light intersection, with one of the vehicles failing to obey a red light.
The vehicles were fitted with the company’s Vehicle to Everything technology (V2X) software that allows them to communicate with each other and also with infrastructure such as traffic lights.
The V2X technology allowed the two vehicles to “identify” each other and avoid a collision.
The goal of yesterday’s trial was to test the technology where so-called “urban canyons” significantly affected the ability of such software that is reliant on global navigation satellite systems to achieve accurate positioning.
The trial area, covering two city blocks in the heart of the CBD, was blocked off to other traffic.
Cohda Wireless chief technical officer Paul Alexander said the technology allowed the autonomous vehicle to “pre-emptively identify and respond to a threat by slowing down and stopping”.
“The technology provides the vehicle with an awareness of its environment and risk factors associated with it, consistently and accurately up to 10 times per second, enabling it to make decisions that a human being would not be capable of making as the driver of the vehicle,” Professor Alexander said.
Cohda’s V2X technology underpins and complements other technology used by autonomous vehicles such as cameras, sensors, radars and lidars by enabling co-operative perception, he said.
“The role of technology in making our roads safer is probably not generally understood but we hope that this demonstration has helped to prove that with the appropriate technology and infrastructure, connected self-driving vehicles deployed on our streets are at less risk than vehicles controlled by human beings,” he said.
South Australian Transport Minister Stephan Knoll said the government believed the technology “can be part of our public and private transport future”.
The trial was held ahead of the three-day International Driverless Vehicle Summit, which opens at the Adelaide Convention Centre on Wednesday.
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