DESIGN NAME: The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver
PRIMARY FUNCTION: Powering Safe and Easy Transport
INSPIRATION: Traffic crashes cause 1.35 million deaths each year, and 94% of traffic crashes in the U.S. are caused by human error. While humans are susceptible to dangerous variables, the Waymo Driver doesn't get tired or angry, distracted, or drunk. The Waymo Driver’s latest hardware suite includes new, leading technologies that can be applied to everything from passenger vehicles to long-haul trucks, taking tangible steps to make our roads dramatically safer.
UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Waymo’s technology, called the Waymo Driver, has the potential to save millions of lives and improve mobility for people and things. The fifth-generation Waymo Driver can be applied to multiple vehicle platforms, from cars to trucks, and power use cases across ride-hailing, trucking, local delivery, and personal car ownership. The latest system is more powerful than ever before and designed for scale, enabling safer and easier transportation for both people and goods.
OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION: The Waymo Driver’s latest hardware suite includes three sensing technologies—lidar, cameras, and radar. Our team designs these technologies to make them feel approachable to users, while still prioritizing safety and performance. For example, we added moving LEDs to our 360 lidar, so that it can include both Waymo branding and a personal identification symbol that acts as a mechanism for customers to identify which vehicle is theirs.
PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION: Mountain View, CA
FITS BEST INTO CATEGORY: Vehicle, Mobility and Transportation Design
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PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY: Materials: A diverse selection of materials like plastic, composites, glass, and metal
SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES: Waymo Driver and vehicle max dimensions for the I-PACE platform*:
Width: 2130mm
Length: 4863mm
Height: 2041mm
*Please note these are dimensions for the I-PACE platform as an example. Measurements will vary depending on which vehicle platform the Waymo Driver is being applied to.
TAGS: Mobility, self-driving, safety, AI, cars, trucks, vehicles, autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing, delivery
RESEARCH ABSTRACT: -
CHALLENGE: The creative challenge is ensuring the design of the high-tech Waymo Driver remains human-centered. Our designers are tasked with packaging advanced technologies into a design that optimizes performance but also feels approachable to users. For example, we carefully curate the placement of our sensors and other technology on our cars and trucks to maximize safety and performance, while still making them look seamless on the vehicle.
ADDED DATE: 2020-09-28 22:41:45
TEAM MEMBERS (9) : YooJung Ahn, Josh Newby, Jared Gross, Jerry Chen, Alexandre Girard, Zhaokun Wang, Yi-Hui Bruce-Wen, Tom Southworth and Albert Shane
IMAGE CREDITS: YooJung Ahn, 2020.
PATENTS/COPYRIGHTS: US Patent Appl. Nos. 29/689,690; 29/722,227; 29/724,655; 29/725,082; 29/724,585; and 29/724,589. Chinese Patent App. No. CN201930599257.7. European Community Design App. No. ECD007141866.
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