Southeast Asian Games spectators, even athletes and officials who want to sample them outside the Athletes’ Village, will be able to experience getting ferried around New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac during the two-week sporting event aboard self-driving shuttle busses.
BCDA photo
This after driverless vehicles, manufactured by US-based mobility company Coast Autonomous, arrived Thursday at NCC for pilot testing.
About a dozen passengers can be accommodated by each shuttle, which is fitted with sensors — “high definition, 3D mapping machines —to be able to roam the roads and weave around objects with no hitches.
Coast Autonomous CEO David Hickey told ABS-CBN news:
“We have a series of sensors in artificial intelligence and machine learning and robotics. That’s basically how it operates, and so we use sensors, 7 different kinds of techniques, for the vehicle to know where it is. Through sensor fusion, we can pile those different techniques and knows what to operate,” he explained.
Since the vehicles require no petroleum-based fuel, they would have to be charged for six hours to ensure hassle-free mobility for 18 hours at speeds reaching 25 miles per.
“We charge it daily, in the morning we have a checklist, we check all the functions and then it drives. There is very few maintenance, no more mechanic side because it’s fully electric,” Pier Lefevre, technology officer of Coast Autonomous, told the TV network.
The bulk of this year’s SEA Games events will be held at NCC, including athletics and swimming, with the SEAG flame to be lit reportedly by boxing icon Manny Pacquiao from the Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan from the torch handed him by gymnastics world champion Carlos Yulo during the opening ceremony on Nov. 30.
Source: Manila Bulletin
Xtra Sports ph 