FPT Software offers public demo of autonomous vehicle at urban township Ecopark

Southeast Asia’s leading IT firm FPT Software on Wednesday gave a public demonstration of autonomous driving technologies at Ecopark, an urban township located 20km east of Hanoi. The demo was carried out as the company had pledged in an agreement with Yamaha and Ecopark earlier in April.

The Yamaha electric golf car, after having been upgraded with FPT Software’s latest autonomous technologies, completed a full journey of 4 kilometers around Ecopark without human interaction. The route was designed with five bus stops and various cross-sections to form a slightly challenging environment for the vehicle.

As users book the trip via a mobile app, the vehicle automatically calculated the most optimal route and priorized passengers in a chronological order. It also managed to detect and avoid obstacles/vehicles along the way, as well as pick up and drop off passengers with 100 percent accuracy. When there was no passenger onboard, the vehicle returned to the starting point and handled the auto-parking function entirely on its own.

These features are equivalent to Level 3 – “Highly Automated Driving” as defined by the US-based Society of Automotive Engineers.

According to FPT Software Chairman Hoang Nam Tien, “this successful demonstration is a major milestone towards making self-driving vehicles a reality, with the potential to transform mobility across urban areas, airports, luxury resorts, etc. FPT Software is proud to be one of the first companies in Southeast Asia to drive autonomous technologies forward”.

Also at the event, he invited the public to experience highly-automated driving vehicles firsthand at FPT Tech Day, scheduled on 21 November 2019 at the National Convention Center. “For the first time, vehicles integrated with FPT Software’s made-in Vietnam autonomous technologies will become “Transporters” at FPT Tech Day 2019”, he said.

“We are delighted to see the demonstration was a success. Going forward, we will seriously consider adopting autonomous driving technologies to offer our residents a better living experience”, said Nguyen Dung Minh, Deputy General Director of Ecopark.

“We look to leverage the power of digital technologies to become a world-class smart city. Ecopark residents would be the first to experience the latest technology advancements, modern facilities, high-quality management services as well as solutions to use resources effectively”, he added.

FPT Software introduced its first autonomous car in October 2017 based on in-depth research and capabilities in Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, Internet of Vehicles, Cloud computing, and Image Processing, etc. The company has successfully tested autonomous technologies on four-seat passenger cars and electric golf cars around local high-tech zones and its own campus. 

FPT Software is also developing an autonomous mobility solution with advanced features such as On-board diagnostics (OBD), Over-the-air (OTA) software update to optimize transportation costs and time. With these solutions, the company looks to continue reinforcing its position as a digital transformation pioneer and becoming a world’s leading digital transformation services provider within a decade.