Macnica has formed a strategic partnership with Applied Electric Vehicles to develop, commercialize and deploy autonomous driving solutions, focusing primarily on the logistics and industrial sectors.
Development of individual autonomous driving vehicles
Many sectors are facing driver shortages and rising operating costs. To address these challenges, autonomous driving technology is being developed across multiple fields, with a particular focus on vehicles for transporting people, such as passenger cars and buses.
In sectors like logistics and industry, vehicles designed for passenger transportation are not always suitable, making it necessary to develop specialized autonomous vehicles for each application. However, creating autonomous vehicles for diverse use cases can lead to scattered development resources and overlapping investments, resulting in significant inefficiencies.
Applied EV develops foundational models for autonomous vehicles, and Macnica, a provider of technology-based solutions as a service, will work to accelerate their adoption in logistics and industrial sectors through the partnership between the companies.
Blanc Robot
Applied EV’s Blanc Robot is a table-top EV platform with no cabin and no controls such as a steering wheel, gas pedal or brake pedals, which significantly changes the conventional concept of a vehicle. It was jointly developed by Applied EV and Suzuki Motor Corporation. Its key feature is the ability to freely reconfigure the cargo bed module and autonomous driving software to match different applications.
Using Blanc Robot as a base vehicle enables the development of autonomous vehicles for diverse logistics and industrial uses, and by integrating control through the onboard autonomous driving software, the vehicle can achieve Level 4 autonomy.
Remote operation management system
Leveraging experience from automated factory transportation and autonomous EV buses, Macnica can select and integrate the sensors and driving algorithms needed to customize Blanc Robot for each site and purpose. And connecting to Macnica’s remote operation management system, Everfleet, enables efficient vehicle use and operation management that balances stable performance with cost optimization.
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