PARIS: Groupe Renault has completed a ground-breaking three-year research project called Tornado in France exploring and understanding the technology required and conditions needed for autonomous vehicles to work away from built-up urban areas.

The trial was made up of two key experiments, including one completed using a specially developed autonomous Renault ZOE.

The first was an on-demand and shared car service using an autonomous Renault ZOE to provide a direct link between Gazeran train station and Bel Air – La Foret business park in Rambouillet (southwest of Paris).

The second was a separate shuttle service calling at predefined stops within the Bel Air business park itself. Both experiments aimed to deliver a reliable, connected autonomous mobility service.

Starting in September 2017 in a region to the southwest of Paris, the Tornado project, led by Groupe Renault and Rambouillet Territoires, collaborated with 10 industrial and academic partners to test the requirements for autonomous mobility services to work in less populated and less dense suburban and rural areas.

With large portions of the UK and Europe made up of suburban and rural areas, the findings from this advanced project could be used to help inform how autonomous mobility might work beyond bustling cities in these types of areas that present unique challenges to autonomous vehicles.

 

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