SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Auto and Truck Show brought us plenty of vehicles that allow you to get behind the wheel, but if you wanted to experience the autonomous kind, Hemisfair had your back this week.
- Autonomous shuttle seats 15 passengers
- Made by French company
- Uses GPS to navigate
The French company Navya was on hand with their 15-passenger, electric shuttle bus ready to give those interested a test ride.
"It's all guided by satellites, and then we have light sensors that are scanning 360 degrees around. We use those mainly because it allows us to deploy without well-painted lane lines- we can operate where it snows," said Aaron Foster, a Solutions Engineer with Navya.
The shuttle bus can also run two different ways depending on the situation.
"We can have it either run in metro mode where we're going to stop at every point no matter what, or we can have it run in on demand where you can essentially select the stop you want to go to," Foster said.
Navya's vehicles are currently operating at low speeds in controlled environments like university campuses, industrial sites, and airports. The company hopes one day though the vehicles will be on every type of road.
"Once people get this experience, they're more comfortable riding it on the open roads like in an urban area and then ultimately stepping up to the highway-capable thing. It's just a learning curve," Foster said.