The rooftop of Village Self Storage will soon host a GPS antenna used to guide driverless cars on the streets of The Villages, Fla., a master-planned retirement community. The antenna was developed by San Francisco-based Swift Navigation, which uses GPS technology to help navigate vehicles within a half-inch of accuracy, according to the source. It’ll be used by vehicle-technology company Voyage, which intends to deploy a fleet of driverless taxis to serve the community.
"The self-driving car is the wave of the future, so I think The Villages will be a perfect location," Village Self Storage representative Lynn Mattix told the source.
"At a cloud level, we are down to about an eighth of an inch [accuracy],” noted Lance Andre, director of geomatics at Swift. “As we relay that out to the autonomous cars and autonomous vehicles in the market, they will realize about a half-inch accuracy out in the field."
The Villages spans 40 square miles in Central Florida. “We’re bringing a door-to-door self-driving taxi service to the 750 miles of road at The Villages. When fully operational, all 125,000 residents will have the ability to summon a self-driving car to their doorstep using the Voyage mobile app, then travel anywhere within the bounds of the community fully autonomously,” according to the Voyage Auto website.
Through resident Gian Cardillo believes driverless vehicles will help the aging community stay mobile, he told the source he’s worried how the autonomous cars will contend with golf carts on the road in addition to passenger vehicles.
Built in 2016 at 444 County Road 466A, Village Self Storage comprises 90,000 square feet of storage space.
Sources:
Click Orlando, The Villages Moves Toward Driverless Vehicles
Voyage, Website
