“At Auve Tech, we’re building the world’s most flexible last-mile transportation ecosystem with our autonomous shuttles. Swift improves our autonomous mobility system, making our navigation safer with precise positioning.”
Jorma Hiie, Project Lead, Auve Tech
Auve Tech was founded in Estonia in 2019. Specializing in the development and deployment of driverless vehicles and autonomous systems, their goal is to build the world’s most flexible last mile transportation system with their shuttles. Like many other driverless vehicles, Auve Tech’s shuttles use highly advanced and expensive LiDAR technology. With LiDAR, the shuttle recognizes its surroundings, calculates its position with reference to other physical objects, obstacles, and hindrances. Using the resulting high-definition map, it then navigates accordingly.
To have a backup plan for instances when LiDAR fails, for example when bad weather conditions prevail, Auve Tech decided to use Swift’s Skylark Precise Positioning Service, since it is largely independent of LiDAR with regards to potential sources of error, while at the same time being one of the most affordable offerings within the spectrum of autonomous navigation technology.
Auve Tech tested the positioning accuracy achievable while navigating only using Skylark–no LiDAR, and then compared the results to those achieved using only LiDAR.
The results were identical, demonstrating that Skylark is not simply an effective backup system, but a safe and reliable alternative to LiDAR.