Verification start toward "unmanned operation", Uber's automatic driving car debuts public roads

An automated driving car that Uber, which is providing the automobile dispatch service all over the world and was developing it, started running on public roads. In the future, verification on public roads will be promoted while carrying users of actual services.

Automatic driving car, appearing in Pittsburgh
https://newsroom.uber.com/japan/pittsburgh-self-driving-uber/

Uber starts self-driving car pickups in Pittsburgh | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/14/1386711/

Uber, who was advancing the development of automatic driving cars by setting up the Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in Pittsburgh, USA in February 2015, released U.S. vehicles capable of running on public roads to the media, have started. Vehicles are developed based on Ford Fusion and are designed to automatically drive while judging the surrounding situation with a huge sensing device on the ceiling part and sensors attached around the vehicle.


A movie that actually gets on this vehicle and reports the state of automatic driving from the driver's seat is also made public.

Behind the wheel of Uber's first self-driving car - YouTube


Automatic driving car of Uber lining up side by side. From now on we will actually start running on the public road in Pittsburgh city.


The test rider was a reporter of The Verge. We report the state of driving from driver's seat which we can not normally ride.


Reporters sitting in the driver 's seat. Blue and green lamps are lit on the other side of the steering wheel in front of the eyes, but this is the lamp indicating the driving mode. When the blue light is on, it is the manual operation mode.


Push the silver button next to the driver's seat ......


The blue lamp turned white, indicating that the automatic operation mode was entered.


A car that runs automatically even if I release my hand. It seems that it is being controlled so as not to overspeed, etc., while observing the traffic rules during automatic driving.


There are also scenes that try to attach hands to handles as "Oh, huh." This is the moment when it stops at the red light just like a reporter's worry. Uber's automatic driving car stops in a while.


And when the signal becomes blue ......


Follow the preset route and turn right at the intersection. When listening to a slightly audible engine sound etc., it seems like you are accelerating as human beings drive.


Around the intersection, a reporter who noticed the oncoming car that protruded the center line gripped the handle. If you look at the movie, you can see that the lamp changed from white to blue at this point.


Although it is an automatic driving car that runs while watching the surrounding situation, in fact it is said that it still corresponds to automatic driving only within the fixed range. A certain road map data is installed in the vehicle beforehand, and the automatic driving mode is not activated when it is outside the area.


During traveling, always check the surroundings with a huge device on the roof.


Cameras and sensors aimed at all directions ......


And, "LIDAR" unit which irradiates laser light while rotating at high speed and creates 1.4 million points of mapping data per second is monitoring the surrounding situation.


Although Uber's automatic driving car which fulfilled the public road debut and the service which puts the user actually started has started, it will be operated with two Uber staff on board for a while. One person is sitting in the driver's seat and waits to be able to drive at any time, and the other has a role of looking at the log data sent from the vehicle at the front passenger seat and recording notes during driving.


In the future I will reduce the number of staff to one and eventually we are planning to move to unmanned operation without staff.

Incidentally, Uber is undertaking various initiatives in Japan, and since May 2016 we have started "Traffic combined transportation" that supports public transportation of public transportation blank areas in Kyoto Prefecture Tango City.

"Same-go-around transportation" starts in Tango-shi, Kyoto Prefecture
https://newsroom.uber.com/japan/kyotango/