Cleaning highly populated areas can be a burden for municipalities but technology has provided us with a solution. The Robosweeper, is a new fully electric and driverless truck designed by WeRide and Yutong Group to clean and sanitize public roads. As suggested by its name, the Robosweeper can clean public roads with sweeping, sprinkling, and disinfection spraying functions from the sides and from the back. All this sounds pretty useful after the pandemic, with China recently implementing one of the world’s most restrictive policies in the world with the likely unattainable goal of zero cases.
The vehicle looks like a bus that was
converted as a prop vehicle for a sci-fi movie. However, it is not a concept
but a fully functional, production-ready vehicle. The heavily tinted windows
are hiding the lack of a cockpit since there is no driver inside the vehicle.
The sensors sticking out of the body are allowing Level 4 autonomy, a feature
that hasn’t been offered yet in production vehicles.
The fleet of Robosweepers is controlled by
a cloud-based platform. Car News China reports that all of the route planning,
supervising and maintenance stops for charging, water refill, and discharging
sewage can be completed without human intervention, improving both efficiency
and safety. The Robosweeper is not the first autonomous vehicle by WeRide,
since the company has already unveiled the Robotaxi (Dongfeng), Robovan
(Jiangling Motors) and Robobus (Yutong). On the other hand, Yutong has
expertise in designing and producing all kinds of buses, making it a fitting
partner for the bus-sized Robosweeper.
A fleet of Robosweepers is ready to start
testing in Guangzhou, later this month. If everything goes according to plan,
we guess that the company will want to expand this service to other cities in
China.
