PAKRI’s greenfund latest investment into ELMO Rent remotely controlled technology, successfully passed the first stage of the official site test of the Transport Administration. Upon passing the second stage, the vehicle is ready for street tests.
The vehicle’s remotely controlled technology allows the electric car to be delivered to the customer and, if necessary, parked without the driver being physically present in the machine. During the test, which lasted almost three hours, the remotely driven car had to pass for example an octagonal trajectory, reverse parking, perform emergency braking, pass five-cone slalom at a slow speed, and other tasks. The second stage of the square test is to drive through a roundabout on the square and a slalom at a higher speed.
“We have learned quite a lot from everyday driving behaviors and have understood how the use of different senses influences a driver’s decisions behind the wheel. The remotely controlled car must drive in normal traffic without a safety driver at a minimum speed of 25 km/h, and we will do our best to make it safe and secure. For example, hearing sounds helps the remote driver to better understand traffic and the car, as more feedback on the control panel means better traffic decisions and faster response. “Therefore, the next, but small, additional technological development is to create a continuous audio connection for the remote driver to let him/her know what is happening in the car and outside the car,” said Enn Laansoo, Jr., founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of ELMO Rent, who participated in the test.
According to the feedback received from the Transport Administration, ELMO Rent has solved the reconstruction of its remote-controlled Nissan Leaf technically well and all the main functions of the car have been preserved as well.
“We had a very good cooperation with the Transport Administration in dealing with different scenarios, which is a valuable practical experience for us and an essential step in moving to the streets. For example, we had come to the conclusion that the remote driver is sharpest when driving for up to 60 minutes. However, we received valuable feedback from the Transport Administration, including the fact that other developers of remote-control technology change drivers every 25 minutes. Such an open co-operation is extremely important both for ELMO Rent and for the future of the development of all remotely controlled and self-driving technology in Estonia,” added Laansoo.
The technology of the remote-controlled vehicle has already been developed to operate without a safety driver, with the aim of bringing vehicles into the daily distribution business immediately after passing the street test. ELMO Rent already offers a free door delivery service, which today still works manually by the operators, but soon from a distance via remote control technology.
Short video about the site test part 1t: https://youtu.be/GJa9L_cSv3I
More pictures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vxjyei3123cgz6e/AAA0yiJocQ00bhRmfShmLCnCa?dl=0