Brazil – Marcopolo SA of Caxias do Sul (RS) through Marcopolo Next, the division responsible for accelerating the company's innovation projects, in partnership with Lume Robotics, a Brazilian autonomous mobility startup of Vitória (ES), Brazil, has unveiled its first autonomous prototype minibus in South America.

The prototype autonomous vehicle is based on Marcopolo’s Volare Attack 8 model and is the result of two years of study and research in partnership with several national companies*. Electrical and pneumatic control modules were installed to control steering, brakes, throttle and gear shift of the Volare. It was also fitted with a data processing computer and a set of sensors – composed of four LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), installed on the front and rear sides, a camera, inertial measurement unit (IMU) and GPS - that make it possible to observe the surrounding environment, such as gear status, fuel level, speed as well as many other parameters. All data is passed to the data processing computer, which controls the operation of the minibus.