UK Roads Specialist Eurovia UK and Academy of Robotics have announced plans for a national partnership to trial the use of the Kar-go road-based autonomous delivery vehicle. The trial is being undertaken to accelerate the development of Kar-go to help it navigate on unmarked roads in the UK in the future.
Kar-go was developed by the Academy of Robotics to help reduce both the financial and environmental costs of last-mile parcel delivery. To test the solution Eurovia UK will be automating the delivery of small plant equipment, tools, materials and other components to and from a highway worksite. The trial will also see Kar-go collect data as it travels to determine the condition of roads.
Eurovia UK, a specialist in operating, maintaining and improving road infrastructure will also help the Academy of Robotics to scale its training of autonomous vehicles. This will be enabled by accessing digital camera data gathered by Eurovia’s fleet in the UK, which covers over 50,000km of UK roads.
The trial will initially focus on the UK, but as a global business operating in 15 countries, the deal offers significant potential for international expansion in Europe and North America.
William Sachiti, CEO and co-founder of Academy of Robotics, commented, “To date, most autonomous vehicle training and testing has taken place on well-marked roads or specially designated test centers, but these areas rarely reflect real-world conditions.
“We believe that training our vehicles to operate on the widest range of real-world conditions is critical to preparing them for the unpredictable elements vehicles may face in the real world. The AI can process the data at immense speeds, so one of the biggest challenges holding back this technology is the ability to get hold of enough data on diverse conditions to train vehicles at scale.”