Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Korean automakers and Robocars

They intend to introduce them this year for private venues like amusement parks, and within five years for the open road.


Driverless Passenger Vehicles to Debut This Year
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter

In about five years, driverless vehicles could run on the Korean highways based on the autopilot system, just like as portrayed in the blockbuster movie "I Robot."

The state-run Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) took the wraps off a prototype of an autonomous vehicle Wednesday, called the ESTRO, which can drive itself without a driver steering.

After sputtering for a while just as any other car, it moved at a speed of 10 kilometers per hour on the ETRI track in Daejeon, approximately 100 kilometers south of Seoul.

"The ESTRO can travel at 25 kilometers per hour at the moment and the maximum speed will rocket to upside of 100 kilometers per hour in the not-so-distant future," ETRI official Sohn Joo-chan said.

"It will eventually take to the roads after dealing with minor technological and legal problems. Technologically speaking, it will take about five years to build a driverless car, which is safe enough to drive on the road, on its own."

Sohn projected that autonomous systems would eventually become a default for the commercial cars of the future.

"Automatic pilot systems would be embraced for most vehicles so that drivers can have the car drive itself, in the first phase on only a straight road without interchanges and later in more complicated places," Sohn said.

"Its applications are almost limitless. Think of self-driving public taxis or buses that will virtually remove the chances of an accident."

ETRI expects that even slow autonomous vehicles including the ESTRO could find passengers to carry this year.

"We plan to put the ESTRO in domestic amusement parks in 2010 and 2011 so that people can take it on a trip around the site. As the ESTRO moves
What did I say on the subject of timeline?

1) The next step is to move the GM driverless car project up from ten years to five.


Yes, the Asians firms do read my blog.

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