Gadgets

Electric scooters with autopilot themselves return to base (video)


Modern small city transport,represented by electric scooters, in the near future it can reach a qualitatively new level and provide citizens with an affordable, convenient, compact and independent means of transportation. In the city of Peachtree Corners, Georgia (USA), the Curiosity Lab technopark has launched testing of smart scooters that can not only independently arrive at the customer’s call, but also at the end of the trip in autopilot mode return to the base for maintenance and disinfection in a pandemic.

The experiment involved 100 electricalscooters in which a positioning system is built in, allowing the device to “consciously” move around the park. A scooter is able to come at the user's call to any place in the technopark. The program to test the capabilities of scooters with autopilot was supposed to begin in January of this year. However, the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic and the need for thorough disinfection made adjustments to the project.

The need for disinfection after each tripaffects the optimal logistics of the project, providing for continuous chains of consumer trips, when the scooter, at the end of one trip, goes to the next customer on the optimal route. In a pandemic, a scooter requires a mandatory return to the base for disinfection after each trip. This condition affects the economic efficiency of the project and increases the time it takes the scooter to be delivered to the customer.


During testing, the delivery system will be checked.transport and the possibility of unmanned scooters traveling through urban areas without creating emergency situations. Technopark Curiosity Lab has an area of ​​200 hectares, up to 7,500 people work on its territory and up to 1,000 people live permanently. The project involved Go X, which developed software to provide communication between the customer and the scooter, and the positioning system was developed by Tortoise. In the future, such vehicles can be used in the services of “smart cities”.

Source: thenextweb