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SARTRE Road Train Project hits the open highway
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Vehicle platooning as envisaged by the SARTRE project is a convoy of vehicles, where a trained professional driving a lead vehicle controls the line of a fleet of vehicles behind him
It is nothing but the sheer brilliance of automotive engineering that has brought the world closer, and as we live each day well settled into a life where going from point A to B in safety is a simple four wheeled affair (even two would do in most cases), the technology that drives these machines is not only going greener for the sake of the environment, but as we have seen in recent demonstrations of the SARTRE project is also pushing the brink of effortless road travel to levels that up until now only seemed possible in a high budget sci-fi thriller.
Part funded by the European Commission under the Framework 7 programme, the Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) project has been underway since 2009, and in a recent test run on a public motorway in Spain has successfully demonstrated that ideas such as vehicle platooning and the concept of automated driving aren’t as farfetched solutions to plausible and practical motoring as perceived so far.
Vehicle platooning as envisaged by the SARTRE project is a convoy of vehicles, where a trained professional driving a lead vehicle controls the line of a fleet of vehicles behind him. By adding in wireless communication, the vehicles in the platoon "mimic" the lead vehicle using Ricardo autonomous control, and perform actions such as acceleration, braking and turning in exactly the same manner as the lead vehicle.
Now, as self governing as this particular technology may seem the advantages of its implementation are as stupendous as the technology itself. For starters, all vehicles part of the platoon are sufficiently autonomous and can leave the procession at any time they choose to. But once in the platoon, drivers can relax and do other things like listening to music, reading a magazine or even have an exhaustive telephone conversation, without having to worry about a thing.
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Kelly
It's about time, I draft while biking and it's like sitting in an easy chair as long as you're not in front. Think of how much fuel we could save if trucks did this--just don't tell the lawyers.
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