TOKYO: Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Corp. has unveiled a system allowing a person to monitor the operations of up to 10 autonomous vehicles remotely.

SoftBank will test the system, mounted with an artificial intelligence engine, until June. It will also continue its experiment to drive autonomous vehicles on public roads in Tokyo.

Through the experiments, the company hopes to develop a system to manage the operations of autonomous vehicles, aiming to put it into practical use at an early date.

Japan will lift a ban on Level 4 autonomous driving, which does not require a driver in some situations, when it puts the revised road traffic law into force April 1.

Licensed business operators will be allowed to provide Level 4 mobility services, such as those using unmanned buses and delivery robots.

The operators need to have staff dedicated to managing vehicle operations and dealing with emergencies. Systems to remotely monitor multiple vehicles at once would be convenient to such businesses.

SoftBank’s system unveiled Wednesday uses the AI engine to detect abnormal events and situations automatically, making it easy to monitor multiple vehicles at once.

JIJI Press