Completed Engineering Computing & AI

Robopilot

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AI plain-English summary

Arrival is building an electric delivery van that can drive itself around a depot without a safety driver on board. The company argues that electric trucks remain too expensive for most fleet operators, and that autonomous driving technology—currently reserved for high-end cars or racing applications—has not been adapted for the light commercial vehicles that move goods through cities. This project, called Robopilot, aims to close that gap by taking autonomous racing technology and fitting it to a practical delivery van. If the demonstration succeeds, the same system could be adapted for larger trucks and buses in Arrival’s planned future lineup. The immediate impact would be on depot logistics: vehicles that manoeuvre themselves without a human driver could reduce labour costs, speed up loading and unloading, and cut the risk of low-speed collisions in tight yards. For city authorities and Transport for London, the longer-term prize is a quieter, cleaner fleet that competes on price with diesel trucks, potentially accelerating the shift away from fossil-fuel delivery vehicles.

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Arrival find trucks today totally unacceptable. At Arrival we are making trucks the way they should be – affordable, elegant, quiet, clean and safe. We are removing all the barriers to entry for electric vehicles by pricing them in line with conventional trucks, giving every fleet manager, tradesman or company, no matter how big or small, the opportunity to change the way they transport goods and make our towns and cities better places to live in. Arrival is well funded by private venture capital but its plans are extremely ambitious and require considerable investment. The public funding provided by the Robopilot project will greatly accelerate the 'safety' component of our vision in line with key objectives of both central Government and City authorities such as Transport for London. It will develop & demonstrate autonomous driving functionality for our recently announced electric delivery van, which can then be adapted for our planned future rollout of larger trucks and buses. It brings advanced autonomous racing technology to the light commercial vehicles market. Demonstration autonomous manoeuvre of the vehicle in a depot environment, without safety driver.

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Collaborative R&D

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