Earlier in the day, the first self-driving KAMAZ trucks started shuttling between St. Petersburg and Moscow on public highways, transporting cargoes. Belousov noted that Russia was on track to gradually switch to level 5 autonomy in its driverless vehicles industry.
"This means that there is no driver in the cabin. They — the traffic operator — are a hundred or a thousand kilometers away," he said during a session dedicated to the self-driving trucks project at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
The official added that level 5 autonomy vehicles will require what is known as a smart road pavement, which contains sensors and communication elements necessary to interact with the self-driving car.
"This is a smart road with broadband Internet access, which allows traffic operator to control the movements of the vehicle online, as if they were sitting in the cabin," Belousov said.
He noted that there are currently no such roads in Russia, but the authorities were working on the issue, in particular, by constructing 5G stations, which are required to interconnect between a self-diving vehicle, the smart pavement and an operator.
"We have planned everything in this initiative until 2023 and have been proceeding according to the schedule. I'm sure that we will start testing level 5 autonomy vehicles in 2025-2026," Belousov said.
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is taking place from June 14-17. RIA Novosti, a part of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, is an official media partner and the host photo agency for the event.