Vehicles that drive themselves are no longer just fantasies. Since Google unveiled its driverless-car technology in 2010, several car manufacturers have announced their plans to introduce autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles. As the technology evolves, some countries are already testing the technology or are planning to do so.
The U.S. leads the way in the pursuit of driverless vehicles with three states (Nevada, Florida and California) having passed laws in 2012, followed by Michigan in December 2013, to allow driverless cars to be tested on public roads. Other countries have also followed their example. In Britain, the government is supporting the implementation of driverless cars. In Sweden, Volvo is planning to conduct trials involving 100 of its driverless cars on the streets of Gothenburg in 2017. In Japan, Nissan received the authorities’ approval in 2013 to test its electric car equipped with an advanced driver assist system on public roads. It plans to launch self-driving cars by 2020.
In Singapore, French company Induct and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), in partnership with JTC Corporation (JTC), began to test a self-driving electric vehicle (which was manufactured by Induct) at CleanTech Park, an eco-business development in Jurong, in 2013.
Industry experts believe that highly automated vehicles would become viable by 2020 and fully autonomous ones could be common by 2030.
Transport experts seem to believe that these vehicles could potentially fit into Singapore’s future transport landscape.
First, driverless buses could enhance productivity, safety and reliability of bus services of fixed routes and scheduled timings.
Second, developments in the automotive industry in the long term could make it viable to adopt driverless cars on a large scale. An integrated network of driverless vehicles could include self-driving taxis and autonomous car sharing.
Producers will likely require new manufacturing capabilities that allow advanced, low-cost, efficient customization, by developing:
- Adaptable, flexible manufacturing to support customization and a wider range of product configurations
- Lean supply chains to improve time to customer
- Autonomous drive hardware and software and advanced electrical vehicle architecture and components
- Customer-centric retailing that links customers to product design and manufacturing
Did you know?
In Driverless Vehicles, the driver intervention will be minimized and substituted by high number of sensors which will provide information of environmental and vehicle condition to the Control System. The vehicle will be also getting data through GPS. Therefore, the reliability of the Control System together with all the sensors are very critical. As result, the environmental testing requirement, especially Shock Testing has become one of the most severe and challenging, not only for driverless cars manufacturer, but also for testing equipment manufacturer.
Presently, typical shock test severity used by automotive industry for environmental testing can go up to 100 G in amplitude and 11 ms in shock duration.
ETS I-SERIES with Extreme Acceleration Y-Ring (EAS-Y Ring) technology and the new HVA Amplifier is designed to meet this challenge. It is the best solution for high shock testing requirement.