Shanghai Expo: Driverless cars introduced

A group of orange vans have successfully finished the last stretch of a roughly 15,000 kilometre journey from Italy to the 2010 Expo in Shanghai, China.The feature by the Italian-engineered Piaggio electric mini vans was made all the more impressive by the fact that they have no drivers. The vehicles, which can navigate roads using sensors, set off from their base in Parma on July 28, on a journey through eastern Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan and all the way across China. Their voyage, believed to be the longest ever for a car with no driver, has served as a road test to see exactly what problems will befall the automated vehicles. On Thursday, exactly three months to the day since they set off, marked the official end of their trip, and the vehicles were on display for thousands of visitors outside the European Union pavilion. Alberto Broggi, project leader from the University of Parma's VisiLab who has spent 15 years researching the technology, was overjoyed by the success of the trip. The vehicles use a series of cameras and laser sensors on the front, sides and behind the windshield which allows them to 'understand' what is going on around them, and decide to steer, break or accelerate accordingly when confronted with obstacles like pedestrians. However, movements like parking and pulling over require manual control, meaning at least one engineer is seated in each vehicle at all times. The vehicles have also struggled in situations of heavy traffic, such as in central Moscow, when they become disorientated by other cars switching lanes and engineers were forced to take control. The vans will rest in the Expo site until the international extravaganza closes on Sunday (October 31), when they will start to make the long journey back to Italy.