A housing development in Auckland, New Zealand, billed as a smart village, will begin testing a private mobile network and an autonomous shuttle service for residents.
Think Robotics, Dense Air and Ohmio are working with homebuilder Paerata Rise, the largest housing development currently under construction in Auckland. The goal is to build an on-demand transportation system that future residents of Paerata Rise can order via smartphone app. Both the network and the technology are in test stages and are set to go live in 2021.
During the testing phase, companies working on the autonomous shuttle system will use a small cell network deployed by Dense Air to trial different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect data and continue on-road trials of the self-driving shuttles.
"Insights gained from that data are used to manage assets, resources and services efficiently; in return, that data is used to improve the operations across the entire eco-system," said Michael Johnston from Think Robotics. "The realities of smart villages and connected neighborhoods are starting to emerge in the world around us, however the real 'smarts' need to be built into the foundations of communities which is why we are executing this project at this stage of our development.”
The self-driving shuttles will act as a transportation method for residents, navigating around a predefined circuit for residents as well as a platform for other services such as connectivity to the outside world, the companies said. The shuttles will be a key element in the lifestyle Paerata Rise will offer residents to improve access between facilities such as park and ride spaces and the Paerata train stations, which are in development.
"We were able to test, for the first time in New Zealand, our hail service that allows the autonomous vehicle to pick up passengers on demand,” said Mohammed Hikmet, Ohmio's executive chairman of Ohmio, who is supplying the shuttles for the neighborhood. “Paerata Rise provided us the right environment to test our technologies and its interaction with the rest of the eco-system elements."
