Autonomous vehicle operation is a technology manufacturers have been investing research and development efforts into for decades. Ron Crawford, director, product marketing & planning, Mining, Komatsu America Corp., says the company began early development of its Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) in 1990. He notes that this was three years prior to military GPS technology and six years prior to civilian application of GPS.
As technologies such as GPS have become more readily available and have improved in performance, Komatsu and other companies like it have been able to make great strides in advancing their autonomous vehicle systems and increase the amount of applications in which they’re used.
Improvements in sensor technology within the past several years have helped it become an integral part of many vehicle systems. Jared Pratt, vice president of marketing and business development at Autonomous Solutions Inc. (ASI), notes that sensors are crucial for performing complex tasks in a safe manner, and are generally the largest cost associated with automated vehicles. “As sensor prices have dropped and as the algorithms have improved to leverage lower cost sensors, more automation applications are showing a strong return on investment,” he says.
The introduction of lower cost LiDAR and stereo vision cameras are rapidly increasing the use of three-dimensional localization, as well as object detection and avoidance capabilities. Both of these functionalities are important to ensure the safety of operators and those around the autonomously operated vehicle.
“Our focus is to leverage these advancements across all our industries to lower the price point of the solution, thus enabling larger market segments to take advantage of the benefits of automation,” says Pratt.
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