Mountain park in Wuhan gets hi-tech upgrade with self-driving buses, vending vans and cleaning vehicles
- A new project brings self-driving buses, roving vending machines and cleaning vehicles to Wuhan’s Longlingshan Ecological Park starting on January 1
- DeepBlue Technology, Dongfeng Motor and Neolix were all tapped to create different vehicles for the park
Life has largely returned to normal in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the Covid-19 outbreak was first identified a year ago. Now residents will soon have a new way to spend their free time following a hi-tech upgrade to a local ecological park, which has been equipped with self-driving vehicles to shuttle sightseers, sell food and clean up after visitors.
The project adds 19 autonomous vehicles to Longlingshan Ecological Park, in a southwestern suburb of Wuhan. The fleet will include vehicles for cleaning and food vending, along with shuttle buses, taxis and sightseeing cars. The project was completed on Wednesday, and park visitors will be able to take advantage of the new vehicles starting January 1, according to the state-run newspaper Chutian Metropolis Daily.
Artificial intelligence start-up DeepBlue Technology, carmaker Dongfeng Motor, and autonomous delivery company Neolix Technologies, among others, all worked on different vehicles for the project.
Dongfeng’s vehicle is a tour bus for sightseers, each with two rows of seats and no driver’s cab or steering wheel. The bus can detect and avoid obstacles up to 15 metres away and is “99 per cent safe”, Dongfeng technology marketing director Guo Shengwei said, according to reports in local news media China News Agency (CNA) and Hubei Daily.
The vehicle is designed for fixed routes within an enclosed or semi-closed area, he added.
DeepBlue’s vehicles, the autonomous cleaners, have been given cuter designs, with the fronts made to look like panda faces. These vehicles carry two large sweepers in the front and a garbage box in the back. They are also able to continue working overnight, in tunnels and even through rainstorms. However, they only travel at a speed of 3km/h, taking them 2.5 hours to go through the entire 2.9 sq km park.
The vehicles also have an internal water reuse system, capable of disposing and recycling water separated from dirt and waste, CNA reported, citing DeepBlue operation and maintenance engineer Yi Wei.