Major milestone: Autonomous sweeper approved for public road use in Singapore

Bucher Municipal's first all-electric compact sweeper CityCat 2020ev became autonomous. In collaboration with Enway, the Berlin software manufacturer of self-driving utility vehicles, a major milestone has been achieved with the approval of the autonomous sweeper for public road use in Singapore. This is a step forward to Singapore’s efforts for a more sustainable city.

Since 2017, Bucher Municipal has been in cooperation with ENWAY to actively promote and further develop sustainability in the municipal sector. The autonomous sweeper "Donner" is based on the all-electric model CityCat 2020ev and was equipped with the technology for autonomous operation of ENWAY. For the use on public roads in Singapore further adjustments were necessary by the team in cooperation with different parties.

The first milestone has already been reached: the fully autonomous compact sweeper "Donner" has taken and passed the Land Transport Authority's test for autonomous vehicles and officially receives approval for public road use in Singapore. Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA) is now starting trial operations on public roads to make the city-state cleaner and more sustainable. The project is part of NEA's ongoing efforts to drive innovation and diffusion of technology and improve the environmental services industry. Autonomous technology for street cleaning can improve productivity in supply operations and optimize road use.

The self-driving sweeper is monitored remotely via a teleoperation centre where cleaning routes and times are determined and adjusted if necessary. During the trial runs, the autonomous sweeper must have a safety driver on board to meet the strict operating protocols. Tests on public roads will be conducted in a progressive manner and will transition into regular periods in which the autonomous sweeper cleans parallel to everyday traffic.

Bucher Municipal was the first to launch an all-electric sweeper on the market. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, the CityCat 2020ev offered the best prerequisites for further development into an autonomous sweeper. With the all new CityCat V20e and CityCat VS20e, Bucher Municipal is consistently taking the step towards electrification and the only manufacturer on the market with the second generation already in series production. The hard- and software architecture have been consistently developed to enable autonomous driving and sweeping. This important step towards connected vehicles is reflected in the possibilities for monitoring of operating status and operating safety through predictive support and maintenance via “Bucher Connect” – which becomes even more important for autonomous vehicles.