正文翻譯

Look, no hands!

你瞧，沒有手！

A driverless lorry takes on the “Top Gear” track

無人駕駛汽車駛上“瘋狂汽車秀”的車道

It is ready to start earning a living

準備開始自力更生

Thanks to “Top Gear”, a British television show for motoring enthusiasts that is now a global brand, a former second-world-war airfield called Dunsfold has become one of the best known testing tracks in the world. On October 15th, however, instead of reverberating to the roar of supercars driven by the show’s anonymous racing driver, the Stig, it witnessed the sight of what appeared to be the cabless trailer of an articulated lorry belting almost silently around the course at over 80kph.

多虧了“瘋狂汽車秀”這檔面向汽車愛好者、享譽全球的英國電視節(jié)目，二戰(zhàn)使用的“敦斯福德”機場已成為世界最知名的試車場之一。但10月15日這天，場上沒有匿名賽車手“試替哥”駕駛超級跑車發(fā)出的咆哮，而是像被鉸接式貨車牽引的無電纜掛車，以80公里以上的時速幾乎悄無聲息地繞著車道飛馳。

The Pod (see picture), as this vehicle is known, was made by Einride, a Swedish firm founded in 2016 by Robert Falck, an engineer who used to work for Volvo. Mr Falck thinks that the technology of vehicle autonomy, long experimental, has now evolved sufficiently for driverless goods vehicles to begin earning their livings properly. Some Pods are already in trials for real jobs: running between warehouses, hauling logs from forests and delivering goods for Lidl, a supermarket group.

這輛車名為“波德”，由瑞典公司Einride制造，工程師羅伯特·法爾克在2016年創(chuàng)立了這家公司，他曾在沃爾沃公司工作。法爾克先生認為，經(jīng)過長期試驗的汽車自主化技術(shù)足以使無人駕駛貨車開始自力更生。有些“波德”已被試用于實際工作：奔走于倉庫之間，從森林運回木材，為超市集團Lidl送貨。

The second difference from most other attempts at vehicle autonomy is Einride’s approach to the word “autonomy”. Some makers take the idea literally, and aim to keep humans out of the decision-making loop entirely. Others, often prompted by traffic regulations, arrange things so that a normally passive human occupant can take the controls if necessary. Pods represent a third way. They always have a human in the loop to keep an eye on what is happening and to take over the driving for a difficult manoeuvre or if something goes wrong. But this human operates remotely.

Einride公司在實現(xiàn)車輛“自主性”的方法上也與多數(shù)制造商不同。有些制造商從字面理解“自主性”，旨在將人類完全排除在決策之外。其他制造商往往在交通法規(guī)的驅(qū)使下進行安排，通常保持被動的人類駕駛員在必要時接手控制。“波德”采取了第三種方式，由人類全程參與決策，密切關(guān)注實時狀況，接手困難的操控或處理差錯，但駕駛員是從遠程操控的。

Having the driver sitting back at hq rather than in the vehicle itself is a departure from convention, but not a huge one. Aerial drones are usually controlled in this way. The radical step is that Mr Falck believes you do not need a remote driver for each Pod. Einride already uses one person to control two Pods, but plans eventually for a single driver to look after ten.

駕駛員坐在總部而不是車內(nèi)是有悖于慣例的做法，但并不嚴重?？罩袩o人機通常采取這種操縱方式。激進的是福爾克先生認為，無需為每臺“波德”配一名遙控駕駛員。目前，Einride公司使用一人操縱兩輛“波德”，最終計劃由一名駕駛員監(jiān)控十輛“波德”。