The Institute of Infocomm Research (I2R) and BYD Company Limited has signed on Wednesday a joint laboratory agreement to advance the capabilities of autonomous electric vehicles in Singapore.
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The announcement follows the recent launch of the first locally developed driverless car by the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Smart) and the National University of Singapore, clearly building traction for clean mobility in the city-state.
This new joint research and development (R&D) programme will particularly focus on leveraging the expertise of both organisations.
The Institute, a member of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), is Singapore’s largest research body for information and communications technology (ICT). They concentrate on intelligence, communications and media (ICM), which include studies on wireless and optical communication networks, sensors and signal processing.
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Intelligent cars will be one of the most important directions for the transportation industry in the future
Liu Xueliang, BYD Asia Pacific Auto Sale Group general manager
China-headquartered BYD, on the other hand, is a leading global firm on electric and efficient transportation and other energy technologies, such as rechargeable batteries. One of their many projects is supplying the electric buses that will be used soon in Amsterdam’s Schipol airport.
Together, the two will push innovation in clean technology in transport. They will develop drive-by-wire systems in the electric cars BYD manufactures using electronic controls to activate the brakes, control steering and manoeuvring, and to operate other mechanisms in the vehicles.
The other capability they are eyeing is the Autonomous Vehicle fleet management system, which can allocate AV resources based on real time information like the location of the vehicle, route, and origin-destination information.
This will be developed in more than 100 electric vehicles for test-bedding purposes, according to the two organisations’ joint statement.
From these experimentation, the data gathered will be used to enhance the AV robotic intelligence, enabling it to decipher situations specific to the Singapore traffic context and road environment. It will also allow the future driverless cars to make intelligent judgements based on predicted and typical responses of drivers.
The goal is let the autonomous driving fleet to run seamlessly and safely with regular person-driven vehicles.
Liu Xueliang, BYD Asia Pacific Auto Sale Group general manager, said: “Intelligent cars will be one of the most important directions for the transportation industry in the future.”
“The collaboration between BYD and I2R, Singapore’s largest ICM research institute, with its deep knowledge in autonomous vehicle technologies, is going to be an exciting journey for us. We believe that a new energy vehicle embedded with autonomous driving technologies will provide drivers with a completely different driving experience,” he added.
“We hope to benefit the transport industry in Singapore and countries all over the world,” noted Dr Lee Shiang Long.
