DRIVING INTO THE FUTURE
DRIVING INTO THE FUTURE Image: A highly autonomous self-driving shuttle has entered service at ESA’s technical heart. it was assigned a suitably spacey name – ‘Orbiter’ – chosen through an employee competition. The Agency’s ESTEC establishment in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, is being used as a testbed for the automated shuttle, to assess its viability as a ‘last mile’ solution for public transport. ESTEC was selected because it is a controlled private environment but with all common transport found on public roads – cars, bikes, pedestrians and roundabouts – the shuttle is able to operate in mixed traffic. “We’re very pleased to be involved with testing this project,” said Franco Ongaro, Head of ESTEC and ESA’s Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality, “as it makes practical use of technologies we have been developing here at ESTEC.” The autonomous vehicle calculate...