Gizmos & Gadgets: Meet Olli the Self Driving Bus

June 26, 2016 – Deemed your neighbourhood electric vehicle, Olli is a self-driving mini-bus that comes with seating for up to 12 and includes on board radar, lidar, and a suite of cameras to allow it to see what’s happening on the roads faster than any human operator.

Seen in the picture above Olli looks like a small version of a bus giving it flexibility that current bus fleets can never have. Ollies can operate in a  network with a fleet of them picking up and delivering passengers throughout a city. No drivers needed. The entire system operates through a centrally controlled, human-operated dispatch system. No need for bus stops. Summon Olli using a convenient mobile app, like an Uber minibus.

Olli is an electric vehicle (EV). It’s quiet. Its parts are 3D-printed using a build process known as direct digital manufacturing (DDM). Getting on board the passenger will experience a sleek, functional interior as seen in the image below.

Olli’s creator is Local Motors, a company born out of a competition held in Berlin over a year ago where developers were asked to define a vehicle and system ideal for cities. Olli’s creator, Edgar Sarmiento, was the winner. In the last week the company unveiled Olli to the world at its headquarters in National Harbor, Maryland.

Olli incorporates cloud-based cognitive computing from IBM’s Watson Project. The vehicle has on board more than 30 embedded sensors that help it to interact with passengers and visualize the world around it. The vehicle incorporates conversation using speech to text, text to speech and natural language. Passengers can talk to Olli and Olli can talk to them.

The first Olli is to remain in National Harbor where it will be available for dispatch to the public over the next several months. Production facilities for more Ollies is located in Phoenix, Arizona. And the company anticipates to have many more running on the roads in the Washington, D.C. area, as well as in Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas later this year.