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LAS VEGAS – The Hyundai Ioniq Autonomous Concept collection circles around Las Vegas terminal week. Specifically, the Ioniq drove itself on a 3-mile loop around the Las Vegas Convention Center and repeated the bulldoze at nighttime to bear witness that its sensors, including the iv forwards-facing cameras, work only fine.

There were no tense moments, no times when the examination driver had take control. As is the instance with other autonomous rider vehicles nether examination, information technology treats the speed limit as inviolate even though the Las Vegas Strip was lightly traveled and others went faster. It didn't run whatever red lights, unlike an Uber machine did in San Francisco (and which has been blamed on commuter mistake). The Ioniq does accept reward of some correct-on-red intersections. Overall, the Ioniq seems on a evolution gradient that would accept Hyundai able to release a self-driving automobile effectually 2020-2021, well-nigh the same as several other automakers.

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Zero on the roof that shouts "image"

The Hyundai Ioniq exam cars don't have anything hanging off the roof or side that suggests this is a self-driving work in progress. The only tip-off is the special Nevada plate with an AU prefix on my test machine, AU for democratic. The sensors are all integrated into the bodywork of the car. There are a dozen sensors in all, including four cameras mounted at the top of the windshield. Optical is the cheapest fashion to track objects, although the car also has multiple radar and lidar sensors that support each other.

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In the camera assortment at the elevation of the windshield, in that location'south pair of stereo cameras  (the white eyeballs in the photo above) used to monitor traffic on either side of a single-purpose traffic calorie-free phase camera aimed slightly upwards. Translation: It looks for traffic lights and whether they're green, yellowish, or red (the phase). To the right of that is the mirror mount (no cameras); on the far correct is the Ioniq's Mobileye/TRW pedestrian detection and lane departure alarm photographic camera.

Backside the grille and in the bumper shroud are 3 IBEO lidar units plus radar, a 45-degree long-range radar array and 90-caste mid-range radar. The front end/side lidar covers 110 degrees (analogy beneath), overlapping a pair of 150-degree side/rear radar units. That gives 360 degrees of coverage. The only sensor blind spot is a small space next to the doors, only anything there would been picked upward by the front side lidar or rear side radar and the information passed forth to the next sensor. The maps, Hyundai says, are cocky-developed.

Hyundai'due south development program is to make the autonomous-driving components more affordable so buyers in five or so years won't endure sticker stupor. The lidar sensors, for instance, encompass 130 degrees non 360; lidar is the most expensive of the vision components. Until recently, a lidar scanner toll $70,000, and so $8,000 (still pricey), at present Osram has announced development of a light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation diode lidar with no moving parts; the chipset in quantity could cost less than $fifty.

Hyundai sensor array diagram

A smooth ride, no driver interventions

Ioniq Westgate 764A8398Our trip was about three miles, starting from the Westgate Hotel (formerly the Las Vegas Hilton) side by side to the Las Vegas Convention Center. Hyundai's test driver pilots the car a hundred yards or so out of the parking lot, turns right, and engages democratic mode. The route takes united states of america north on Paradise Road, right on Sahara Road, right on Joe W. Brown (the curving road behind the Westgate and convention heart), right on Desert Inn Road, right on Paradise again, past the LVCC, and right into the Westgate parking lot (autonomous mode disengaged).

The passenger compartment in front looks much the same as on a product vehicle, except for a yellow and crimson emergency-stop push on the center stack. In back are ii LCDs attached to the seat backs. The left displays a video view of what the traffic calorie-free camera sees; a box forms effectually the traffic lights as soon as they're identified. The right display is the sensor view of what'south on the road, the sensed curbs / projections, and the mapped curbs / projections.

The matter commencement-time passengers notice is that the automobile moves sedately: very polish acceleration and braking, polish turns, and never going above the speed limit. Las Vegas wasn't very crowded mid-morning a week and a half before Christmas, but if pedestrians were around and almost a crosswalk, the car would accept slowed to make up one's mind if they were most to step into the crosswalk. A stopped car blocks our travel lane; the sensors pick it up (you lot can see the car outlined on the sensor / map brandish), our Ioniq puts on its left blinker, looks for an opening, moves left, passes the stopped car, and and so moves back into the correct lane.

The ride is uneventful, much the same every bit on other self-driving cars I've been in: a Ford Fusion driven about the company'southward Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters, and a Delphi / Mobileye Audi Q5 in Pittsburgh, in the shadow of Carnie Mellon University, a spin-off of which provided the self-drive algorithms. All the cars stay well within the speed limit.

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Works in the dark, also

ioniq_764A8564-edit-2We rode the circuit in the early evening as well. It works much the aforementioned every bit during daylight. The sensors, including the four cameras, accept enough light from the street lights, other cars, and our own headlamps to map the area and possible obstructions.

We fabricated several correct turns on red. On other autonomous examination cars I've been in, they didn't make rights on red, although it was unclear if the cars were programmed that way or if the weather weren't right. Hyundai says the Ioniq tin can make a right on red if the traffic crossing right to left has a left turn arrow and cars are turning left (that is, onto the same street equally the Ioniq is leaving).

There was one brief unsettled moment. Nosotros were moving in the correct lane while in the left lane traffic was stopped and backed up; a pickup truck stuck its nose just over the lane marking, seeing if traffic would finish. Our car slowed, stopped, so when information technology was clear started up once more. The driver didn't need to take over.

Ioniq comes in 3 flavors, will take on Prius, then self-driving

The 2017 Hyundai Ioniq comes to market this winter. There will be 3 versions, arriving in this club: Ioniq electrical vehicle (124 miles stated range) and Ioniq hybrid in the winter, followed past the Ioniq plug-in hybrid (27  miles on battery) in summer 2017. When it ships, the Ioniq Blue hybrid, an offshoot of the Ioniq hybrid, will have the best EPA rating, 58 mpg combined (57 mpg city, 29 mpg highway), besting the Toyota Prius Eco's 58 mpg combined. Both cars get a special depression-rolling-resistance tire-and-wheel bundle to wheedle an extra i-ii mpg from the the mainstream hybrid. The Ioniq Blue may come in at under three,000 pounds, besting the Prius Eco'southward 3,033.

The car is a little snug in back and there'due south a reason: Information technology'south non Sonata-sized, merely rather, at 176 inches, iv inches smaller than the compact Hyundai Elantra.

Hyundai engineers say they want to do everything possible to brand Ioniq'southward three powertrain versions and the autonomous organisation seem every bit normal as possible and to keep the prices reasonable. Thus the interest in optical sensors, the cheapest of three three types (lidar, radar, optical). At that place is the possibility that costly moving lidar tin can be replaced by cheaper solid state lidar. One lidar vendor, Osram, claims a solid state lidar module could be less than $50 in quantity, one-hundredth the cost of some moving lidar modules in apply today.

Hyundai exoskeleton

Autonomous driving consortium via World Economic Forum

Hyundai is i of 27 companies taking part in a consortium of automakers, component suppliers, insurers, and service providers working on democratic driving. Information technology's a spin-off from the World Economic Forum, formed in May 2016.

The big players are Toyota, Nissan, General Motors, Volkswagen, BMW, Hyundai, and Volvo. Insurers include Liberty Mutual and Sompo Holdings (Japan). Qualcomm, Ericsson, Uber, and UPS make upwards the tech and service providers. Notable not-participants include Apple tree, Ford, Google, and Tesla.

In that location are other consortiums focused on assisted or democratic driving, such equally the 5G Automotive Clan, which seeks back up for cellular communications interacting amidst cars: Audi, BMW, Daimler, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Nokia, and Qualcomm.