An autonomous vehicle has successfully completed an eight-mile route linking a train station to a business park southwest of Paris, in a three-year project completed by Groupe Renault.
Project Tornado began in September 2017 trialling an autonomous car sharing service between Gazeran train station and Bel Air-La Forêt business park.
Initially, an on-demand shared car service featuring the Renault Zoe provided a link between the rural train station and the business park. Renault said the aim was to have an electric vehicle drive completely autonomously over an eight-mile stretch.
Then a shuttle service called at predefined stops within Bel Air business park.
According to Renault the project addressed specific requirements in suburban and rural areas such as narrow streets, roundabouts, obstacles and lack of road markings. This involved enhancing the vehicles perception capabilities enabling it to sense the area around it with a 360° field.
Furthermore, the project team were able to locate and control the vehicle with 20cm accuracy. This ensured the vehicle stayed on course navigating narrow roads and remained on the correct route even with missing painted lines.
The vehicle also had to deal with temporary loss of GPS signal during the trials and was capable of travelling at speeds which are ‘deemed acceptable by everyday drivers’.
The project led with Rambouillet Territoires, and 10 industrial and academic partners, aimed to identify the communication infrastructure and technologies required to rollout autonomous mobility services in suburban areas.
Feedback from the local community was also an important component of the project. The team consulted 100 people from the Rambouillet Territoires to understand people’s mobility habits and perception of the autonomous vehicles. The aim was to gauge the level of interest and in the future provide targeted, safe, shared and environment-friendly mobility options to complement existing ones.
