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Fleet Services & Maintenance
The Racine Badger relies on light detecting and ranging sensors to move forward, backward and sideways in addition to camera vision and GPS coordinates to map routes and detect obstacles. (Photo provided)
Meet the Racine Badger: Racine invests in driverless technology By MARY JANE BOGLE | The Municipal
Living up to a “smart city” designation is no small feat. It requires a continual investment in developing, deploying and promoting technology in order to solve urban challenges, and it’s something the city of Racine, Wis., takes very seriously. Consider the city’s nine new electric buses, for example, currently in the testing and training phases. The addition of these buses brings the city of Racine the unique distinction of owning and implementing the largest fleet of electric vehicles in the state. But perhaps even more exciting is the city’s continued exploration in the field of driverless technology. Enter the Racine Badger, an autonomous, zero-emission electric shuttle. In a partnership with Gateway Technical College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Perrone Robotics (a Virginia-based software firm), the city has begun testing this autonomous vehicle for public use. 44 THE MUNICIPAL | APRIL 2022
“Our ambition is to make the city itself a laboratory for experimentation on this emerging technology around mobility and transit,” said Racine Mayor Cory Mason. How it works The Racine Badger relies on light detecting and ranging (LIDAR) sensors to control forward, backward and sideways movement. The Racine Badger also relies on camera vision and GPS coordinates to map routes and detect obstacles in its path.
