Grant: Alliance Grants

Autonomous Fleet Mobility (AFM) systems are becoming more vital in certain indoor and outdoor applications and services. For example, by 2030, seniors will make up 23 percent of Canadians, resulting in staff shortages in health and long-term care settings. This will underline the need for self-driving mobility systems that can perform basic tasks such as moving patients/residents and equipment from one room or building to another. Similarly, public transportation is becoming the sole method of mobility in some cities' core areas, highlighting the need for mobility systems that can ease financial pressure and address driver shortages. Despite significant advancements in recent years, indoor and outdoor AFM systems still face cost and safety challenges. The current use of costly on-vehicle sensors in AFM systems increases production costs and does not address obstructed views in busy and cluttered indoor/outdoor environments, causing significant safety concerns. Our solution for the AFM system is to replace most of the on-vehicle perception sensors with infrastructure sensor nodes (ISNs) that use existing 5G networks for global fleet perception, and to replace the on-vehicle computational devices with cloud computing by leveraging existing 5G networks. This solution has significant potential to considerably reduce the cost and complexity in AFM systems, both in indoor and outdoor operations. Although the proposed technology will have uses in many applications, our research focus and implementation will be on long-term care and health care facilities and public transportation. This research program will develop and deploy the first 5G-enabled outdoor and indoor mobility fleet system in the world to address the impending shortage of health care workers, reduce health care costs in Canada, develop an economical approach to public transportation, and position Canada as a leader in this field. It will also train students in autonomous mobility systems, which will be essential in many industries and services in Canada and around the world.