﻿This is Ohmio. An electric-powered, Level 4 Autonomous Shuttle, designed and developed in
New Zealand. And no, it’s not a concept vehicle. In fact, it’s currently being piloted and used
by the public in South Korea. I was invited to come and see this cool piece tech in action,
and well.. how could I say no… Autonomous vehicles are going to revolutionise
the way we commute profoundly. You’ve likely already seen videos of Tesla’s FSD beta,
or perhaps Waymo’s Robo Taxi service. Both are extremely impressive and will play a vital role
towards an Autonomous future! However, I’ve always been curious to know how Autonomous technology
will play a role in public transportation. And Ohmio is intended for exactly that.
This particular Ohmio is being piloted by the Korean Transport Institute
and Lotte Data Communications Company, in a city called Sejong, in South Korea. And if you’ve
ever visited Korea before, the first thing you’ll notice about Sejong, is how vastly different it is
from Seoul. This city is only 10 years old, it’s extremely modern, and the terrain is very
flat. That combined with the city's high-quality infrastructure, makes Sejong the ideal testing
ground for an Autonomous Vehicle. The first thing you’ll notice when seeing
an Ohmio in person is that it's an oddly shaped vehicle. It’s 4.7 meters long, 2.2 meters wide and
2.3 meters high. It has 6 lidar sensors. One for each corner of the vehicle and two hemispherical
for the front and rear of the shuttle. And for backup there are 6 ultrasonic sensors.
It’s fair to say this vehicle was not designed for speed or aesthetics, not that it looks bad, but
this vehicle was clearly designed with interior space being a priority. And you really feel that
the first time you step inside. A huge benefit of the Ohmio being a Level 4 autonomous vehicle,
means there’s no need for a driver's seat or steering wheel, giving plenty of space
to comfortably fit up to 13 passengers. So now that I was on board, Dr Moon from the
Korean Transport Institute handed me a Travel Card to demonstrate how the vehicle will take
payments from the public. It’s the same payment system you’d use if you were to say.. take a bus
in Seoul. Though right now, it only charges you 10 Korean won - that’s just under 1
cent in US currency. Essentially it’s just there for show right now,
to help make the Ohmio feel like any other form of public transport. So once the doors shut,
with a quick tap on the screen, off we went! Now I have to admit, this was my first time
stepping into an Autonomous vehicle, period. I had no idea what to expect, or how I’d feel about the
whole thing. But the best way I can describe the experience is that you go through three phases.
Phase one: you’re excited, curious, and definitely a little bit anxious.
The idea of a computer driving you is a little unsettling at first. But once you realise, okay,
this computer is performing its task and nothing bad is happening, you quickly move to Phase 2.
You begin to accept the fact that a computer is driving you, and that it’s safe. You then
take a moment to admire just how far technology has come! Then comes Phase 3, which surprised me
the most - boredom. You become fully complacent with the idea that a computer is driving you,
you have zero concerns about your safety and sadly, the excitement is gone... Boredom ensues,
and you find yourself wanting to take out your phone to check your socials. But what shocked
me is how quickly I got from Phase 1 to Phase 3. I’m typically quite the paranoid passenger,
but I got fully accustomed to the idea of a computer driving me within about 5 minutes, and my
assistant producer had a similar experience. Now when I say it gets boring, that may sound like
a bad thing, but I guess that’s exactly how it should feel. I mean this thing is not a Ferrari.
It’s not meant to be a rollercoaster ride. It's public transport. It’s meant to take you from A
to B and to do so safely. You should feel just as you would when taking a bus, tram or train.
Now typically, Level 4 Autonomous vehicles don’t require a driver whatsoever,
however, Ohmio is still in its pilot phase, therefore a safety operator does remain on board,
in case something goes wrong. And you’re probably thinking, but Jono, how can a safety operator
possibly intervene when this vehicle doesn’t have a driver's seat? Well, with a joystick of course!
No, seriously... with a Joystick. This safety operator demonstrated the joystick by manoeuvring
the Ohmio around this illegally parked vehicle. And hey it works, so why not! And future versions
of the Ohmio will be controllable via a remote office should human intervention be required.
To learn more about the Technology inside this autonomous shuttle,
I spoke with Mahmood Hikmet, Head of Research and Development at Ohmio in New Zealand.
Ok, so.. Ohmio vehicles work sort of like a tram, but rather than using steel rails in the ground,
we lay down virtual tracks in software. This means that rather than having to carry out millions of
dollars worth of infrastructure changes, we can just change the route in software as the
need arises. Since Ohmio vehicles are aimed at public transportation, we know the areas
that we’re going to be servicing. And that puts us at a really really big advantage here, where
we can plot out the routes that we’re going to be on and know what to expect. So we’re
not solving this problem of having to know about all this uncertainty that might crop up.
We know what's going to happen. That’s a much simpler problem to solve than say, a level 5
vehicle that needs to go everywhere. Even places that it’s never been before… There’s a saying that
anyone can build that stands up, but only an engineer can build a bridge that barely stands up.
Limiting the technical scope is something that’s really really important in engineering, because it
allows you to solve a problem quicker, cheaper and with using less resources overall.
If you’re interested in learning more about autonomous vehicles,
Mahmood has some great content on the topic on his YouTube channel. So if you’re interested,
I’ll leave a link in the description below. Now, after riding in the Ohmio for about half an
hour, I wanted to understand how safe this vehicle was for pedestrians. So I asked the engineers if
we could put Ohmio’s obstacle avoidance to the test - with me being the "obstacle".
Quick disclaimer: this was all done under the supervision of professionals and in a controlled
environment. I specifically wanted to see how fast the Ohmio would react if I walked in front of it
while it was driving. And being the cheeky bugger I am, I was a little naughty and stepped out a few
seconds later than the engineers advised me to. I’ll admit, it was a tad scary, but the
technology worked! The Ohmio was able to detect me in time and stopped to avoid a collision.
Now as I mentioned earlier, this Ohmio is already open to the public. But currently,
it’s not for the purpose of getting people from A to B. Right now, a key objective
for the Korean transport institute is building the public's trust with this technology.
This autonomous shuttle is what we call a level 4 automated vehicle. We want to make this shuttle
running in urban areas. And the typical area to connect the living village to the mainstream of
the public transportation. We want to make the public change their traffic pattern.
Utilising this vehicle instead of a passenger vehicle. In the way of their transportation,
within a few miles. In the morning and afternoon, we’re going to save our space of parking area,
we’re going to save our people from going on the road, suffering from congestion and suffering
from traffic accidents. Okay, this is what we want to a goal. Okay so maybe we think that,
from the year 2023, 20 vehicles are to be implemented in the city, then by 2025,
the city’s plan now to have more than 200 vehicles running in the whole city at the same time.
Autonomous vehicles still have a ways to go before dominating our roads,
but as you can see, the technology is making quick progress.
And perhaps we'll see this technology more widely utilised in public transport
before we do in passenger vehicles. Before I go, I’d like to quickly talk about the
situation in Ukraine. Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking of ways in which I can help. And
thanks to you guys and this platform you’ve helped me build. Perhaps we can make a small difference
together. A highly talented Ukrainian 3D Artist I’ve worked with in the past named Skeeva,
is selling his Crypto art online and is giving all the proceeds to humanitarian and defence efforts
for his country. This guys work is insanely good, and his art has already contributed
a lot to the cause. So if you’re into nft’s and digital art and want to support Ukraine,
I’ll be leaving a link to where you can buy his art in the description below.