Lovely Professional University (LPU) has designed and built a solar-powered driver-less bus.
The bus is slated to enter commercial service later this year and the first prototype will be utilized to welcome and ferry Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Indian Science Congress venue, which will be held at LPU on January 3, 2019, the company said in a statement.
The design of the bus has been done keeping in mind Indian conditions and it will cost Rs 6 lakh. Since the engine is battery and solar powered, the running cost is essentially negligible. The bus has a maximum speed of 30 kmph and can seat 10-30 people, depending on the seat arrangement.
The fabrication is being done at the LPU Project Studio where other such R&D and product commercialization also takes place.
Students have used a technology called Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication to make the bus driverless. The technology works by using wireless signals detected through ultra-sonic & Infrared sensors.
The bus uses GPS and Bluetooth for navigation and can be controlled within a radius of 10 meters. The motor controller adjusts the amount of energy that flows to the motor to correspond to the throttle.
Reference- Economic Times, The Statesman