A self-driving hybrid vehicle made by the Mobility Taiwan Automotive Research Consortium (mTARC, 台灣車輛移動研發聯盟) is to operate at Hsinchu’s Nanliao Harbor (南寮漁港) after being granted a license, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) said at an exhibition in Taipei yesterday.
Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) signed a memorandum of understanding with ITRI to allow the institute to test its self-driving vehicles in the city.
The institute said that it hopes the test could help improve the vehicles’ functions and safety systems.
“We want Hsinchu to be Taiwan’s first testing ground for self-driving cars, because we have a strong talent pool in the region,” Lin said.
Earlier this month, Lin said he hoped self-driving vehicles could be used to ease traffic jams in the city.
The main theme of mTARC’s exhibition this year is “intelligent mobility, connectivity and sharing.”
The consortium added “mobility” to its name this year, Ministry of Economic Affairs Department of Industrial Technology Director-General Lo Ta-sheng (羅達生) told a news conference yesterday.
Larry Chang (張念慈), director of ITRI’s Mechanical and Mechatronics Systems Research Labs, said that the autonomous vehicle is still being tested.
The institute has tested its self-driving vehicles in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park (彰濱工業區) for three years, accumulating total mileage of more than 2,000km, he said.
Nanliao Harbor has sufficient roads and infrastructure for driving tests, Chang added.
The self-driving programs for a Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷) fossil-fuel car, designed by the Automotive Research & Testing Center (ARTC, 車輛研究測試中心), and a Chrysler hybrid car, designed by ITRI, are to be tested at Nanliao, Chang said.
ARTC is also developing electric shuttle buses, center researcher Tsai Hung-yih (蔡汯嶧) said.
mTARC develops autonomous driving for hybrid cars, fossil-fuel cars and electric buses to target different customers, he said.
“mTARC is a platform for various institutions to share technology and seek different possibilities,” Tsai added.
At the exhibition, the consortium displayed 23 research results in self-driving technology, such as sensors and thermographic cameras that locate and show pedestrians in all kinds of weather, image recognition systems that can distinguish objects on the road, intelligent LED headlights that can automatically avoid creating glare for oncoming drivers, sensors that can detect a driver’s status and an alarm system that warns a driver of obstacles in their blind spots.
Cameras and sensors installed in the self-driving vehicle collect and send data, which could be analyzed to show road status, traffic flow, parking lot status and pedestrian flow, Chang said.
Lin was presented a smartphone app that could start the engine of mTARC’s self-driving vehicle outside the exhibition hall.
The vehicle’s passenger safely exited the vehicle after sitting in the back seat for a few minutes.
The products displayed by mTARC are the result of research by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Institute for Information Industry (資策會), ITRI, ARTC, the Metal Industries Research and Development Center (金屬工業研究發展中心), the Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co Ltd (華創車電技術中心) and 16 companies.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS