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“UAVs are the future, cars with artificial intelligence are already driving around the world’s highways” – this is how many popular science articles on this topic sound. And what about technology in Our Country? Do our companies have their own achievements in this area from a beautiful far away? Let’s figure it out. Let’s talk about unmanned vehicles in Our Country, the main models presented, the principles of operation and discuss the future.
The most discussed drones in Our Country at the moment
Yandex
Self-Driving Cars is the name of the project of an IT company that has evolved from a search engine into perhaps the main fintech company in the CIS. They tested their drones not only in Our Country, but also in the USA and Israel. Perhaps, at the moment, this is the only project that will fully work in our country in the coming years. The company actively lobbies (in a good way) for its developments at a high level. For example, it agreed to allocate districts of Moscow where it is possible to test an unmanned taxi. After all, now, as you know, law prohibits cars that drive without a driver. Behind the wheel must be a person with rights and control the situation.
The company tried to combine its unmanned technologies with modern foreign cars. These are mainly Toyota Prius and Hyundai Sonata. They are equipped with a proprietary lidar – a sensor that reads the distance to objects on the road.
PRISON 3
If Yandex focuses more on passenger vehicles, then this auto giant has been collecting experience in operating trucks for decades. They have several prototype autonomous heavy trucks. And also electric cars without a driver’s seat at all and city shuttles, which in the future can replace buses.
The loudest project of the company is called “Odyssey”. This is a drone based on the diesel KAMAZ-4308. It has four types of sensors, a bunch of types of communication (Wi-Fi, 4G, radio communication). They also have an unmanned “Chelnok” 3373: essentially a bare trailer truck, without a cab. By 2025, the company plans to launch unmanned trucks on international highways. The prospects for such drones in Our Country are huge. After all, KAMAZ makes not only classic trucks. On the basis of their bases, emergency vehicles and military vehicles are assembled.
US
Development of the state scientific center FSUE NAMI – “Nami Shuttle”. So far, only a concept, but the creators themselves believe very much in its future. Accelerates up to 40 km / h. Looks like something out of a movie about the future. Except it doesn’t fly. The cabin can accommodate 12 passengers. The driver’s seat is not provided in principle. But the authors say that on the basis of the platform it is possible to increase the capacity and create a full-fledged city bus.
Sber Automotive Technologies
Drones from the green bank. Their development and testing is supervised by the SberAvtoTech division. So far, they have cars on the fingers of one hand. The car uses maps from 2GIS, since this company is also included in the bank’s asset portfolio.
SBER has its own taxi prototype called FLIP. Sometimes it is jokingly called a coffin on wheels. Glossy box on wheel axles, in which there is no driver’s seat. Up to six people can sit inside. Inside, there is a filling from the bank’s multimedia services, such as branded streaming music and an online cinema.
Starline
Developer NPO StarLine. The company is engaged in telematics and transportation automation. They have two drone projects. Although strictly speaking, the car is one. Just for different purposes. The first project is RICAR. This is a complex that is installed on a passenger car and allows you to determine its location, the inertial navigation module and data on wheel speeds received from the car’s digital bus. As well as traditional cameras, radars and lidars. The second OSCAR project is an opportunity to test the drone for everyone in St. Petersburg. Those who want to understand people who are still involved in the development of drone systems. Roughly speaking, they are looking for people in the team of testers and developers.
Cognitive Pilot
The company makes drones for agricultural machinery. For example, combines. The project is called Cognitive Agro Pilot. Combines were tested in three dozen regions of Our Country and the results are encouraging: machines with autopilot do an excellent job with sowing and harvesting. The firm also developed autopilots for classic cars, but the project was put on hold.
Volgabus
Their offspring is called “MatrEshka”. This is another “coffin on wheels”, which is conceived as a minibus or public transport. Its advantage is that the drone is initially powered by an electric motor. Unfortunately, nothing has been heard about the introduction of the drone since 2018. It is occasionally shown at festivals and tech shows, but the project seems to be in stagnation.
How self-driving cars work
The drone does the same as the person behind the wheel, only its brains are electronic, and instead of eyes it uses a set of equipment.
Cameras. They “look” in different directions. This “picture” is analyzed by a computer program to identify obstacles, people, cars and other objects on the roadway, its boundaries, markings and even signs.
Stereo cameras. They determine the distance to objects.
Radar. It determines the distance to objects using radio waves, as on warships or aircraft.
Lidar. Surround laser sensor, which makes a three-dimensional map of the area around the machine.
Sensors. GPS / GLONASS receivers, inertial meters and sensors that show how fast the wheels are spinning, where they are turned, etc.
All these devices collect information together, the software and hardware complex processes it and gives the necessary decisions: accelerate, brake, turn, etc.
The funny thing is that all this is not a miracle of technology at all. Many current production cars already have elements of self-management systems, take the same active cruise control, which automatically stops the car when an obstacle appears, and a lane keeping system when the car itself does not leave the road marking lines.
Sultan Zhankaziev, head of the department “Organization and traffic safety” MADI, says that at their road institute, students assemble prototypes of self-driving cars literally on their knees. It is important not to make a piece of iron that can drive itself. It is important to make sure that all such cars drive safely on the roads without causing problems for each other, and that all rules and laws clearly prescribe their use, fix liability and all that. Who will be to blame if the autopilot breaks firewood? The owner of the machine, its manufacturer, the developer of the program – who? All of this has yet to be written into law. Well, the roads will have to be redone, that’s another story.
The future of unmanned vehicles in Our Country
Now drones can drive on public roads in Moscow and Tatarstan, St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Moscow, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod and Samara regions, as well as in the Krasnodar Territory, Chuvashia, Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Districts. This is spelled out in Government Decree No. 1415 of November 26.11.2018, 10. It is stipulated that a driver must be behind the wheel of a drone to control control systems, and his liability is insured for 1 million rubles. The experiment will last until March 2022, XNUMX.
However, experts interviewed by the KP believe that lawmakers and relevant departments still have a lot of work to do on the way to introducing drones in Our Country.
“We are not ready for the mass use of drones in the non-civilian sector,” I am sure Oleg Krupenko, founder of Inspark. – Since there is no specificity for legislation and certification, there is no precedent in connection with offenses. There is no driving culture regarding unmanned vehicles. There is an assumption that if unmanned vehicles are mass-produced, then other drivers will purposefully provoke them.
On behalf of the President, the Ministry of Economic Development supported the draft plan for the phased introduction of drones.
– It is extremely difficult to objectively assess the quality or performance of developments with foreign ones. Perhaps the marketing, ergonomics, and amount of accumulated data of drone operation are better in the US or in China. However, due to the difference in climatic features, landscapes, temperature regimes, accumulated experience in non-civilian areas, companies have succeeded in durability, stability, breadth of applications, – continues Krupenko.
Technology is becoming more modern and cheaper. Ten years ago, a $10 unmanned vehicle could lift no more than 000 kg of payload, and now $3 worth of vehicles are lifting the same load. The possibilities for the range of use have also increased along with the development of power supply. And this opens up new opportunities and models of use, new businesses, and, consequently, new niches for investment.
– Often the exclusion of a person from the processes allows you to reduce costs, take into account and plan resources, and most importantly manage a particular structure, which is especially important in big business. In Our Country, nothing hinders the development of unmanned technologies. Legislative activity is underway. Driving motor boats or motorcycles is regulated, the same is waiting for drones, the expert noted.
About the future of unmanned trucks, we asked to tell Director of the Digital Transformation Department of PEK Oleg Skovorodnikov:
“We live in the largest country in the world. According to Rosstat, the length of roads in Our Country is more than 1,5 million km. Given the fact that there are fewer and fewer people who want to work as truck drivers – this, by the way, is a serious global problem – the demand for unmanned trucks will only grow.
As for the cost-effectiveness of unmanned cargo transportation, the technology will not be profitable at the first stage. But after improvements, when the driver no longer needs to be in the cab, the attractiveness of the technology for transport companies will increase significantly.
Drones will be in great demand in freight transport. A good example is the mining industry. Finding haul truck drivers is even more difficult than finding a truck driver. Mineral deposits are often located in regions of the country that are unfavorable for living. Working conditions are harmful and even dangerous: dust rises during mining, sometimes radioactive. The lack of drivers has driven the development of drones, the technology has been successfully used in the mining industry for about 14 years. The first unmanned mining truck was launched in 2008.
I am sure that freight transportation will develop in the same direction. I expect driverless long haul cargo trucks to enter commercial service within the current decade. Most likely, this will happen in the United States, where the world’s largest experience in operating such trucks has already been accumulated.
But in Our Country, this area is actively developing with the support of the state. In 2021, an agreement was signed to launch unmanned commercial transportation on the M11 Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. PEC is one of the signatories of the agreement.”
Popular questions and answers
Answered questions about unmanned vehicles Oleg Skovorodnikov, Director of Digital Transformation Department, PEK:
But unmanned traffic will not be 100% accident-free either. For example, situations may arise on the road that the algorithm will not be able to solve. In addition, the driving safety of a car is correlated with speed. Therefore, driverless drones will travel slowly at first. And on roads without snow and with good visibility. Another condition is low traffic and orderly traffic that can be algorithmized. The culture of driving in the country is also important.