Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - July 2021 - 23

MaaS
"
In select cities, customers will be able to have a self-driving vehicle
take them to their destination.
"
The planned commercial shuttle fleet to transport
passengers and goods will be operated by Volkswagen's
MOIA mobility services subsidiary. MOIA was inaugurated
in 2016 and has grown from a staff of 50 to a
current 1,000-plus employees. Volkswagen said that
early in 2021, Argo installed an automated-driving
system in a prototype vehicle for testing in Germany.
According to Argo CEO Bryan Salesky,
the ID.Buzz
test vehicles will be fitted with the fifth generation
of Argo's automated-driving system and that adding
Munich to Argo's existing test cities " is a big deal for
us. " But he was careful to avoid committing to whether
any U.S. cities - Argo currently tests in six - would
join Munich in public-road testing of the ID.Buzz
prior to the planned 2025 commercial rollout.
" Our aim with the self-driving version of the ID.
Buzz is to facilitate commercial deployment of transport
and delivery services starting in 2025, " said VWCV's
Senger. " In select cities, customers will be able to have
a self-driving vehicle take them to their destination.
The delivery of goods and packages will also be made
much easier through our autonomous driving service. "
Volkswagen believes that light commercial vehicles
are the logical place for initial deployment of autonomous
transportation of people and goods. Robert
Henrich, CEO of MOIA, added that parcel delivery with
the ID.Buzz is " a really good start. " But he cautioned it
ultimately may not be the ideal vehicle configuration
for that purpose.
" Right now, we are in the preparation phase, " said
VWCV's Senger. " There is a long way to go until this
high-tech becomes an enormous growth market. "
Argo Lidar-powered
Salesky said that Argo AI's focus on testing in cities
is " going where demand is " and that the company
intends for its automated-driving system to provide
" true address-to-address autonomy. " He added that it
currently runs more than 10 million driving scenarios
every day in simulation. The urban robo-shuttle collaboration
with VW is an important element in Argo's
goal of achieving maximum safety, Salesky said.
Guaranteeing safety is reliant on the robustness
of the vehicles' perception technology. The
VW-Argo collaboration will employ Argo Lidar, the
in-house-developed, high-performance lidar that
Salesky claimed can generate photorealistic images
at a maximum distance of 400 meters (1,312 ft). Argo's
2017 acquisition of Princeton Lightwave, the company
said, brought discreet knowledge that helped lead to
Argo Lidar's " Geiger-mode " sensing performance.
This includes the ability to detect a single photon of
light - the key to sensing objects with low reflectivity,
typically a lidar weak point. The low-reflectivity
XGL Family
Ultra-low Loss Power Inductors
* The industry's lowest DCR and ultra-low AC losses
across a wide frequency range
* Inductance values ranging from 82 nH to 47 μH
* Isat ratings up to 43 Amps with soft saturation
* Qualified to AEC-Q200 Grade 1 (−40°C to +125°C)
Free Samples @ coilcraft.com
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE ENGINEERING
Free Info at http://info.hotims.com/79450-708
July 2021 23
http://info.hotims.com/79450-708 http://info.hotims.com/79450-708
Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - July 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - July 2021
