Row of Tourist bus coach parked at carpark
Unikie and Scania have been working together on automated bus depot marshalling. By automating depot driving tasks – like driving the buses to charging, cleaning, or maintenance – this solution has several benefits, such as reducing costs in the form of freeing up drivers, reduced damage to vehicles and infrastructure, and optimization of logistics flows.
Vision for automated bus depot
Unikie and Scania have been working together on automated bus depot marshalling. By automating depot driving tasks – like driving the buses to charging, cleaning, or maintenance stations – this solution addresses the daily challenge of managing hundreds of bus movements, reducing costs in the form of freeing up drivers, reduced damage to vehicles and infrastructure, and optimization of logistics flows. The cooperation was part of a Vinnova project Flow optimized depot operation.
Unikie Marshalling solution
The Unikie Marshalling Solution (UMS) enables automated driving of buses without human interaction. It forms the basis for digitalization and complete automation of a bus depot, allowing mixed traffic with manually driven buses and first automated buses, automated EV-charging, automated car wash and other automated functions.
Unikie Marshalling Solution is an infrastructure-based system, providing a real-time digital representation of the depot and all vehicles moving in the depot – both indoor and outdoor. It combines a smart and versatile network of LiDAR sensors and processing nodes for full, accurate and fast control of vehicles along with detailed real-time situational awareness. Read more on Unikie Marshalling Solution.
Project Approach And Implementation
A remote-controlled Scania bus was developed and brought to Unikie’s Test Center in Turku, Finland. Unikie’s HIL systems made it possible to do testing digitally against the final environment, without the need to build up physical sensors. During the project, the automated Scania bus moved in mixed traffic situations, driving between manually driven vehicles, people crossing the area and obstacles that may have entered the scene. With UMS, we also demonstrated some of the depot processes such as charging, washing, maintenance and sequencing for the next trip.
Read the original article and see the demonstration video on Unikie’s website to understand how automated bus depot operates.
