Taiwan has started testing self-driving vehicles on open roads, accrding to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).
The first case of trial on open roads, which began on April 12, sees autonomous electric shuttle buses running between a downtown area in a city and a high-speed rail station in northern Taiwan, said MOEA.
Testing of autonomous driving on urban roads, which involves real traffic, entails more complicated computing systems to handle information on vehicles, road conditions and pedestrians than testing in closed fields or on suburban roads, MOEA noted.
The buses used in the trial are equipped with iRoadsafe, a V2X solution developed by government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), which integrates automotive sensors, roadside sensing facilities and traffic lights. ITRI also provides sensing subsystems and decision-making control used in the buses.
Other participants in the trial are: RAC Electric Vehicles, which makes the buses; Mobiletron Electronics, which provides IoV hardware/software; Maxwin Technology, which sets up a DRT (demand responsive transport) platform providing information about waiting passengers at bus stops; Adlink Technology, Unex Technology and Neousys Technology, which provide electronic components or modules; and Yosemite-Bus, which operates the buses.
