| Sweeping Industry News Bulletin |
Driverless Robosweeper Brings AV Tech to Street Cleaning – in ChinaGuangzhou, China – June 2022 On April 28, 2022, China's autonomous driving developer, WeRide, saw its first Robosweepers roll off the production line. The company said they are the first mass-produced and purpose-built, self-driving street cleaning vehicles in China. WeRide is currently in the process of conducting a large-scale road test of a fleet of over 50 Robosweepers in Nansha District, Guangzhou, China.The Robosweeper is designed and produced for urban environmental services with WeRide's partner, Yutong Group. The sweeper features a cockpit-free design without a steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedals. The Robosweeper fleet is managed by WeRide's designated custom-built cloud-based platform that acts as the brain and command center of intelligent city's environment upkeep. The platform offers real-time information of routes, operations and autonomous driving status. It facilitates intelligent scheduling, automated activation, remote dispatching and route management, ensuring daily operations, such as charging, water filling, waste discharge, vehicle activation and parking without human intervention. The Robosweeper EV has a fully redundant chassis and is driven by WeRide's Level 4 autonomous solution. But there's no compromise in functionality, with Robosweeper capable of performing typical environmental services such as sweeping, sprinkling and disinfectant spraying. It's thought the latter could prove particularly useful given China's ongoing battle with Covid-19. WeRide says it has also developed a custom-built cloud-based platform to manage the fleet, with the platform acting as the brain and command center for the environmental services. The system will provide real-time information on routes, operations and autonomous driving status, facilitating intelligent scheduling, automated activation, remote dispatching and route management. This will ensure daily operations, such as charging, water filling, waste discharge, vehicle activation and parking, can be completed without human intervention. "Under the accelerated urbanization process, we observed a surge of needs on environmental services," said Tony Han, founder and CEO of WeRide. "Meanwhile, with COVID-19, the request on zero-contact environmental services has been raised due to public health concerns. By developing the self-driving Robosweeper, WeRide offers a package of environmental services without human intervention."
Check out the Robosweeper in action in the YouTube video linked below.
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The Robosweeper is WeRide's second mass production autonomous model after its Mini Robobus, shown in the photo to the right. WeRide is one of China's leading companies when it comes to self-driving tech, with Robotaxis, Robobuses, and Robovans, operating in cities including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Nanjing and Wuhan. Only last month, it confirmed a deal to build its next-generation autonomous driving solution on the Nvidia Drive Hyperion AV platform.