Virtual Vehicle presents autonomous citycar
The ZeroOne, as its creators have christened it, is characterised by an ultra-light, crash-optimised body – the first of its kind, as the Graz researchers point out. Thanks to innovative gesture and voice control, the vehicle is designed to be easy to use for all users. This becomes clear right from the first glance inside: the engineers have given the vehicle an extra-large display for interaction with the user. You won’t find a steering wheel. In order to steer the ZeroOne through unmapped terrain and to be able to intervene in an emergency, there is a small joystick. Of course, the ZeroOne is driven electrically; however, for the time being no further information as to the powertrain was available.
The vehicle is designed in such a way that it will be able to autonomously find its way around the city and transport passengers from point A to point B. It features state-of-the-art comfort equipment with a large TFT display for driver information and entertainment. At the same time, it offers a new way of interacting with the passenger through gesture recognition using a time-of-flight (TOF) camera; voice control is also planned for the future.
“Autonomous concepts are changing the car into an active place to stay. The interior is becoming much more relevant, as people want to work and relax in the car,” comments Jost Bernasch, Managing Director of the Virtual Vehicle Research Centre.
As – according to its own statements – Europe’s largest research centre for virtual vehicle development, Virtual Vehicle was able to welcome a number of top-class keynote speakers such as Carlo van Driesten from BMW Group and Florian Netter from software manufacturer Argo.AI at its symposium. Topics such as integrated computing platforms for artificial intelligence or new approaches to autonomous driving were discussed. The keynote speech by the Swedish top expert Per Runeson, who focused on the topic of software engineering and thus the emphasis on software development for vehicle development, received high attention from the experts. Christoph Gümbel from “Future Matters” devoted himself to the topic of how new OEMs – such as LucidTechnology – are developing new vehicles and how strongly new methods of virtual development and validation are being used there.
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