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Gothenberg, Sweden* The site of Volvo’s Sartre autonomous road train concept testing.
Shanghai, China GM debuted its autonomous car concept, EN-V at last year’s World Expo 2010 Shanghai. The name is sort for Electric Networked-Vehicle, and the concept aims to transform urban transportation. The autonomous two-wheeled car for two could one day cut down on traffic and parking availability issues if its vehicle-to-vehicle communication method catches on.
Berlin, Germany Freie University Berlin’s AutoNomos project has sprouted a different kind of connected vehicle: one that latches into your brain. BrainDriver, though not road-ready yet, uses human-machine interfaces that could allow your electric-magnetic signals to send a car where you want it to go.
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Tokyo, Japan Company ZMP, headquartered in Toyko, will begin selling an autonomous vehicle this year for around US $84,000. Though it looks more like a golf cart than a BMW, ZMP is moving autonomous transportation into the hands of consumers faster than most thought possible.
Abu Dhabi, UAE The Tourist Club Area, like most other places in Abu Dhabi, is packed with cars and people, making transportation a chore. To relieve some of the street congestion outside one of its parking garages, Abu Dhabi Commercial Properties started using a robotic parking garage. A robotic platform places newly dropped off cars in a large stacking system and keeps track of all of the cars’ locations through cameras tracking license plate numbers.
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Adelaide, Australia MAGIC 2010 proved that robotic communication is a reality, with winning Team Michigan using 14 robots that collaborated with simple barcode scanning technology. Though not full-sized vehicles, this type of communication is paramount to many autonomous vehicle concepts.
Mission Critical
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Spring 2011
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