Driverless tech tested by new partnership

Autonomous vehicle technology is being put to the test at a 2023-hectare California proving ground under a new partnership between the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and GoMentum Station.

Managed by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA), this partnership enables TRI to expand closed course testing of its two-prong approach to vehicle automation – Guardian and Chauffeur.

Established in 2015, TRI has made rapid progress in its research into automated driving and recently demonstrated Platform 2.1, its new advanced safety research vehicle that allows testing of Guardian and Chauffer in a single vehicle.

In the Guardian approach, the human driver maintains vehicle control, and the automated driving system operates in the background, monitoring for potential crash situations. It can intervene to protect vehicle occupants when needed.

Chauffeur is TRI’s version of full vehicle autonomy where all occupants are passengers as the car drives itself.

Both approaches use the same technology stack of sensors and cameras. TRI’s vision is to offer drivers a choice by making vehicles safer and driving more fun and convenient.

TRI will use GoMentum Station for further testing of Platform 2.1, which includes a new high-fidelity Lidar system that provides a longer sensing range, a much denser point cloud to better detect positions of three-dimensional objects, and a field of view that is dynamically configurable.

Close to TRI research headquarters in Los Altos, GoMentum Station augments TRI’s public road trials with testing of extreme driving events unsuitable for public roads.

GoMentum’s varied terrain and real-life infrastructure includes roads, bridges, tunnels, intersections and parking lots.

Safety is the biggest benefit from driverless technology, CCTA executive director Randy Iwasaki says. “The statistics are clear; lives will be saved by reducing a vehicle’s reliance on human drivers.”