1st ICAI 2020

International Conference on Automotive Industry 2020

Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic

The deployment of additional equipment for these vehicles can bring further expansion of their technical capabilities. Some solutions are already available. For example, use for irrigation – vehicle can autonomously irrigate selected graves with specified amount of water and drive autonomously from grave to grave. Great potential can be seen in specialized inspection vehicles. These vehicles are able to follow given routes automatically and take pictures at specified positions in the defined perspective. Extensive possibilities are in the routine public maintenance. We mention only some possible examples available: spreading salt or plant seeds, spraying fertilizers, snow plowing, towing trailers and grass cutting (Innok Robotics GmbH, n.d.). With the gradual development of all components and control management systems, we expect broad deployment of specialized platforms in the following industries: building industry, agriculture, military, engineering industry, mining industry, performing special tasks in the field and in demanding outdoor conditions, warehouses and their adjacent logistics areas, shipping ports, airport operations, environmental monitoring, delivery and space industry. 2. Autonomous utility platform development In our survey of specialized vehicles for the transport of freight and equipment we found some very promising concepts. Several large automotive manufacturers have already introduced their concepts. Autonomous specialized truck Volvo HX-02 (Volvo, 2017) is presented as a battery-electric load carrier, whose main aim is transform the quarry and aggregates industry. General Motors (GM unveils SURUS flexible, autonomous fuel cell platform, 2017) introduced large autonomous fuel cell electric platform called Surus (Silent Utility Rover Universal Superstructure) - a flexible fuel cell electric platform with autonomous capabilities. Scania (Scania Group, 2019) showed their a fully autonomous concept truck without a cab – Scania AXL. They built it as modular system for smart transportation. The concept is powered by combustion engine by renewable biofuel. Another interesting promising concepts are being developed by less established producers in this area. For example start-up Ree (REE, n.d.) from Israel presented their completely new autonomous battery-electric platform. They use an ambitious marketing message: “The wheel reinvented”, when they included the drive and steering into the wheel. Honda (Cheng, 2018) has also a representative of the specialized vehicle in this segment – an autonomous ATV Honda 3E-D18 for industrial and agricultural use. Company Rakkatec (Rakkatec ltd, n.d.) from Finland develops multipurpose platform for operation in difficult terrain. All above mentioned vehicles can be seen in Figure 1.

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