Oxbotica, an autonomous vehicle startup, has completed its first sustainable deployment of a zero-occupancy, fully autonomous, electric vehicle (EV) on public roads in Europe.
The vehicle, provided by AppliedEV and operated by Oxbotica, traveled on Oxford public streets without a driver and is an important step toward public deployment of these vehicles. Oxbotica said it plans to accelerate commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles globally to enable passenger shuttles and industry-specific platforms for cargo and delivery transport.
The vehicles will be powered by Oxbotica Driver, the company’s core product that uses a combination of radar vision and laser-based sensors for vehicles to better perceive its surroundings. Multiple artificial intelligence systems continuously check and explain the decisions given to the vehicle.
The trial was conducted in line with the U.K. laws for autonomous vehicles and follows two years of trials by Oxbotica to define and develop its system architecture for both off- and on-road operations in the U.K., Europe and North America.
In the video, Oxbotica’s autonomous vehicle is shown driving along Oxford public streets. The frame of the vehicle will reportedly be grafted to fit a variety of different vehicle form factors, including passenger shuttles, delivery vehicles and, more than likely, robotaxis.
