There will soon be many opportunities for automated vehicles in Australia. ATN sat down with NTRO research lead Dr Charles Karl to talk about organisation’s project with the Australian Army and discover what the technology could mean for the transport industry.
Earlier this year the Australian Army successfully operated an autonomous truck convoy on a public road in Australia for the first time. The Army was assisted by the National Transport Research Organisation (NTRO).
The NTRO is a research organisation that offers all levels of government and industry consultation across all modes of transport. It provides innovative research and practical solutions to challenges across road, rail, ports and airports.
The NTRO’s role in the autonomous trial, together with Deakin University’s Institute for Intelligent Systems Research and Innovation (IISRI), has been to safely and successfully deploy the locally developed technology on public roads.
This involved testing and development to ensure that the technology could safely inter-operate alongside other road users on roads and highways in Australia, with the Victorian highway trial an important step towards this goal.
NTRO project lead and discipline lead for mobility futures, Dr Charles Karl, says the Army had already been operating autonomous vehicles in an off-road environment, but needed the help of the NTRO to set up a trial for autonomous vehicles to operate on regular roads and highways.
“The Australian Army asked us to help manage the trial program of their trucks. Autonomous vehicles travelling on private roads is one thing but for them to operate on public roads there is a lot of planning involved.
“We secured approval from all the relevant jurisdictions where the trucks were travelling through, we also prepared a safety plan and considered any potential problems that may arise during the trial,” Karl says.
Karl says the key to the future of automated vehicles in Australia is making sure that the new technology is able to be incorporated into the existing road ecosystem as seamlessly as possible.
“Currently autonomised vehicles cannot travel freely on public roads, they need to organise a trial and the roads must be closed.
“Eventually we want to work towards a future where these vehicles travel freely on public roads. To get there we need to consider how it can work with the existing road systems and traffic management framework and what might need to change,” Karl says.
The NTRO has experience working with other automated vehicles in the past, making it a suitable partner to work with the Army for this trial. Past NTRO automated vehicle projects include working with European manufacturer Volvo, Transurban, VicRoads and with La Trobe University.
Karl says the NTRO wants to improve the process for allowing automated vehicles to operate on public roads in Australia.
“We want to create a positive regulatory environment for automated vehicles here.”
“The better prepared we are to work with these vehicles the sooner Australia can benefit from the technology. ”
Karl says Australia lags behind Europe and the US in terms of large scale automated vehicle deployments and that there is big potential for the technology once it becomes more mainstream.
“The easy, low hanging fruit for automated vehicles will be jobs such as line-haul driving. Where drivers are completing long distances on relatively remote roads.
“Generally, though, we can think of automation as taking humans out of dull, dangerous and dirty jobs.
In the context of the Army truck convoy this could mean removing Australian soldiers from situations that pose a threat to their lives.
Colonel Robin Smith, of Army’s Future Land Warfare Branch, said the autonomous vehicles performed well.
“This trial showed how a convoy could undertake a resupply mission between an airfield and a military base, giving us an idea of how this kind of technology could be used in the future.
“Driving on a highway in traffic meant the technology was tested to stop safely, and leave distances between other vehicles, while following the path set by the leader.
“Down the track, technology like this could remove our soldiers from dangerous environments, or help free soldiers up for other roles,” Smith says.
Karl says, in the future, automation will also play an important role in alleviating the labour crisis which has been an ongoing issue in the heavy vehicle industry but emphasises the importance of bringing the community along for the transition process.
“Drones and e-scooters are good examples of how new technology gets regulated and adopted by the general public. At first people didn’t know how to deal with them but now that it’s properly regulated, we can see all sorts of new commercial applications coming into play.
“The whole ecosystem needs time to adapt and think about the technology. The NTRO’s job will be to look at cost-efficient ways of testing automation and regulating the road network around it,” Karl says.