ARTC Demonstrates Newly Developed Self-driving Vehicles

With support of Department of Industrial Technology (DoIT) of Ministry of Economy Affairs (MOEA), Automotive Research & Testing Center (ARTC) demonstrated its newly developed “general self-driving vehicle” and “pick-up self-driving vehicle” in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park located in Lukang, central Taiwan, showing off Taiwan's capability of developing autonomous vehicles on its own.

It is safe to say that the global market for autonomous vehicles has great growth potential and is likely to develop sustainably in the long run. McKinsey & Company, a worldwide management consulting firm, reported that the global market for autonomous vehicles is estimated to reach US$6.7 trillion (NT$196 trillion) by 2030. So far, over 30 tech firms and car manufacturers worldwide have worked on R&D of related technologies to vie for the sweet market pie.

To assist Taiwan-based firms to ride the wave and generate more economic benefits, ARTC has poured considerable resources into the development of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) since 2007, and has successfully transferred 11 ADAS technologies to 16 Taiwanese firms. Noteworthily, to keep in tune with the self-driving trend and commercialize related know-how, the firm has continually revealed its R&D results of self-driving technology since 2014, and just unveiled its two autonomous vehicles this year.

The newly developed autonomous vehicles, featuring multi-sensing technology integrating lidars, radars and image recognition devices, are capable of making appropriate decisions while driving themselves. Moreover, its innovative steering and brake system can work in conjunction with Internet of Vehicle (IoV) devices, to realize the vision of autonomous vehicle remote control and smart transportation pick-up services.

To disclose the outstanding performance of the said vehicles in a road test, ARTC planned two driving routes: one is along ordinary roadways, and the other along specific roadways.

Both the two fully driveless vehicles are installed with 10 innovative ADAS technologies developed independently by ARTC, which includes image recognition system, 3D lidar obstacle sensor, lane following technology, vehicle locating system, auto parking system, adaptive cruise control, autonomous emergency braking system, lane changing, etc., and effectively accomplished different tasks as required in the testing.

Huang Long-chou, general manager of ARTC, noted that the evolution of auto technology has entered a new era of artificial intelligence (AI) and IoV. He emphasized that the vehicles of tomorrow, which indicate those built with AI technology and providing robust security and high efficiency, will help make people's lives much more convenient and safer than ever.

While managing to develop multiple autonomous driving technologies, ARTC has also spent lots of time on overcoming many technological challenges faced during R&D, to make sure its autonomous vehicles can work smoothly.

Later on, ARTC will focus more on R&D of big data analysis and AI deep learning, so as to make its self-driving cars more adaptive to different environments.

Also, the organization will continue to share its R&D results with other companies, and provide them various autonomous driving solutions for some special areas like theme parks.