Kiwi-made driver-less vehicle trials for Christchurch Airport

Wednesday, 14 March 2018

Ohmio Automation is building the first New Zealand-made autonomous vehicle which will be trialed at Christchurch Airport to gain on-road certification.

The first on-road testing of a New Zealand-made driver-less vehicle will begin at Christchurch airport in the next few months.

Ohmio Automation's locally designed and built LIFT electric vehicle will be able to carry up to 20 people and the airport has already talked about using it to transport passengers from car parks to the terminal.

Ohmio chief executive Stephen Matthews is hopeful that the LIFT will be certified to carry passengers on-road inside a year.

This French self-drive shuttle has been under going testing at Christchurch airport for the past year.

A French-made autonomous vehicle imported by Ohmio has been trialled on private roads at the airport for more than a year, but Matthews said the Kiwi version would be larger (4.7m long) and include new navigation and obstacle detection technology.

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Matthews declined to put a price of the new vehicle other than to say it was 'very expensive' and he said the amount the airport company had contributed to the trials was confidential.

Ohmio was in discussions with other potential users such as retirement villages and hospitals interested in using it to transport patients between hospital wings.

'Human cost is the biggest cost of transporting people and if we can take that cost out of moving people, we can lower the operating costs.

'It's a trade off between the capital cost and the operating cost.'

Christchurch Airport is also involved in assisting with development of Cora, a driver-less air taxi being is being tested in Canterbury.

The vehicles are designed to operate on predetermined repetitive routes, and their mapping function meant they could learn a route and repeat it over and over.

Multiple Ohmio vehicles could also join up to form a convoy, then split up as required to take passengers to different destinations.

The body of the LIFT is being made in Auckland and the chassis in Wellington.

Christchurch Airport general manager corporate affairs Michael Singleton said the second phase of the trial meant the vehicle could be proven and licensed, and was built specifically for New Zealand conditions.

'Collaborating with Ohmio means we have a technology partner and producer which is able to take the learnings from the trial to date and then adapt and enhance the vehicle to New Zealand needs.'

Christchurch International Airport's (CIAL) interest in new technology has also driven its involvement with Cora, a driver-less air taxi under development here by Zephyr Airworks.

CIAL said it had provided logistics support and made space available to Zephyr Airworks, but had not made any financial contribution to the Cora project.