Abu Dhabi Driverless Transit System Celebrates Six Year Anniversary
Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) celebrated its sixth year in operation on Monday, giving autonomous technology developers and researchers everywhere an example of excellence in the driverless vehicle sector.
“This achievement stands as a true testament to our culture of innovation,” said Masdar’s executive director of sustainables real estate Yousef Baselaib, via The National.
What makes the PRT system special besides its longevity is the fact that in six years, it has amazingly avoided having any accidents or collisions. To help keep its driving record clean, the PRT’s pods are equipped with onboard sensors that help detect obstacles in the way.
The PRT’s driverless pods are battery-powered. The batteries for the pods recharge while sitting in stations in between trips. The pods themselves are controlled using an advanced navigation system that employs magnets implanted into the roadway.
Since the inception of the PRT system, data has been collected on the system, in an effort to help with the development of other autonomous technology. This data collection has been very important according to Carel van Helsdingen, the chief executive of the PRT manufacturer 2getthere.
“At Masdar City we have both daily passengers and first-time users, from 6am until midnight, with the requirement to constantly provide a reliable and high service level under difficult environmental conditions,” Helsdingen said. “As a result we have gained significant knowledge to support autonomous vehicle development.”
Helsdingen added that the data collected has also been important in seeing how people communicate with the technology.
“Real-life applications are invaluable for the reliability of the resulting information,” he said. “Where a demonstration only provides an indication of the way passengers interface with a system, a real-life application shows real-world behavior.”
Video footage of the system in action can be seen here.
