Las Vegas will have a new driverless car service that can be requested through an app

(CNN Spanish) – Halo launches one of the first driverless car services in the United States promising simplicity and a future with some autonomy.

The idea of ​​the service is to allow through its app the possibility of requesting an electric car so that later it can be driven like any other. The main difference or “magic” aspect is that the vehicle arrives at the requested destination without a driver on board, but is driven remotely thanks to the fact that it is mainly connected to the 5G and LTE network of T-Mobile (the same network used by popular cell phones like the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S21 Ultra), but it also supports other networks in case T-Mobile’s is too congested or there is another problem.

Remote drivers have the ability to control cars not only thanks to cellular connectivity, but also thanks to nine cameras, two radars and multiple ultrasonic sensors that allow them to see and understand the world from where they are.

Users using this service will not need to park their cars in a specific location. Nor do you pick it up in a parking lot as usual. In reality, these Halo cars arrive at the place where they are requested and take you to your selected destination, such as the entrance to a hotel or a shopping center.

From there, users no longer have to worry about vehicles because that is where remote drivers take control. This means that, in a way, Halo is offering a similar service to Uber, but instead of having a driver all the time, you only have one who is not present to take and collect the vehicle. The rest of the time, the user takes possession of the car as if it were a rented one.

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Safety measures for the driverless car

As safety methods, Halo integrated a technology that forces vehicles to stop when they detect a possible danger or an anomaly in the system.

Halo also includes artificial intelligence that has the ability to learn in the background from the driving of people using the service. With this, the company hopes to feed enough to this artificial intelligence so that over time some functions become more and more autonomous.

Initially, the company aims to offer a level 3 range (Level 3, in English), which requires a person on board who does not have to be watching what happens on the road at all times while the car is being driven. autonomously.

Halo has been testing this class of vehicles on the streets of Las Vegas since the beginning of 2020, but plans to open this new service to the general public before the end of the year in this same city. In addition, he hopes to take it to other cities in the future.

Halo is a company from a T-Mobile innovation lab. It was founded by different executives from Uber, Cruise Robotics and Amazon, among other companies.