In autonomous and self-driving vehicle news are Torc Robotics, Applied Institution, NI, Porsche Partners, Mobileye, Perrone, Ouster, Motional, Faction, onsemi, Cepton, NVIDIA and Nuro.
Torc Robotics Partners with C.R. England
Torc Robotics, an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG (“Daimler Truck”) and a pioneer in commercializing self-driving vehicle technology, recently announced its strategic collaboration with C.R. England, one of North America’s premier transportation companies. Torc and C.R. England will implement a pilot program leveraging C.R. England’s temperature-controlled loads and Torc’s fleet of SAE Level 4 autonomous test trucks for long-haul applications. The collaboration will serve as an expansion for Torc to support carriers in the refrigerated freight market.
C.R. England and Torc are excited to participate in this joint pilot, which will provide select customers with temperature-controlled capacity and world-class service. Information from the pilot will include unique insights, and will help guide the development and ongoing commercialization of autonomous trucks for long-haul applications. Initial planning will begin mid-2023, with on-road tests soon after.
Joanna Buttler, Head of Autonomous Technology Group at Daimler Truck, says: “We listen very closely to our customers to understand their business requirements. Torc’s collaboration with C.R. England allows for unique insights into truckload freight that will help integrating with fleet industry logistics. While developing a safe and reliable redundant truck platform for the integration of our partner’s autonomous technology, co-creation will bring us closer to our goal of commercializing and implementing autonomous trucking within this decade.”
“Torc is thrilled to be partnering with C.R. England to better improve long-haul trucking safety for one of the premium service providers and largest refrigerated carriers in the nation,” said Peter Vaughan Schmidt, Torc Robotics CEO. “The data derived from the pilot will contribute to our safety and validation efforts and use cases for autonomous trucking.”
C.R. England CEO Chad England adds: “C.R. England is excited to announce our partnership with Torc for pilot activities on level 4 autonomous test trucks. We believe this innovation will eventually provide the ability to expand our network safely, with high levels of service to our customers, all while enhancing the quality of existing driver jobs. Specifically, by adding autonomous lanes to our network, we can expand our customer offerings and create more structured jobs for drivers at both ends of autonomous runs. Torc’s deep integration with Daimler Truck AG makes our two organizations a perfect fit for piloting this new technology.”
The pilot program with C.R. England is Torc’s second announced carrier pilot. This news comes on the heels of Torc’s recently announced acquisition of Algolux for its award-winning intellectual property and expertise in computer vision and machine learning.
Applied Institution & NI Partner for ADAS & AD
Applied Intuition and NI announced that the two companies will combine their expertise to provide an end-to-end solution across the connected Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) and Autonomous Driving (AD) validation workflow, ensuring a best-in-class experience for customers.
The collaboration between Applied and NI represents a significant milestone in the advancement of autonomous driving technology. The two companies will showcase their joint solution at NI Connect 2023 later this month. By combining their respective strengths, Applied and NI will enable engineers to develop and validate their ADAS and AD systems more quickly and safely, ensuring the most cost-effective solution for the customer. This relationship will lead to a safer, more efficient, and reliable autonomous driving future.
Applied specializes in providing simulation and software solutions for ADAS and AD systems. Its platform enables customers to test and validate their autonomous vehicle software in a virtual environment, allowing for faster and more cost-effective development. NI’s comprehensive ADAS and AD test lineup includes customizable, solution-level products that offer comprehensive testing and measurement solutions for the automotive industry. Its hardware and software tools facilitate real-time testing of ADAS and AD systems, providing a secure and controlled environment for engineers to develop, test, and validate electronic control unit (ECU) algorithms and sensors.
”NI truly complements Applied’s strengths,” said Peter Ludwig, Co-Founder and CTO of Applied Intuition. “NI’s excellent timing fidelity for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) replay works hand in hand with our high-fidelity object and sensor simulation. With our joint solution, engineering teams can finally create consistency across all levels of testing to improve the quality, reliability, and traceability of their ADAS or AD stack.”
”By working with Applied, we can offer a comprehensive solution for ADAS and AD validation workflows that meet the evolving needs of our customers,” said Drita Roggenbuck, SVP and GM of the Transportation Business Unit at NI. “By combining NI’s ADAS and AD systems with Applied’s simulation software, we can improve efficiency and collaboration, resulting in faster time-to-market for our customers.”
Porsche Partners with Mobileye
The sports car manufacturer Porsche and the technology company Mobileye (Nasdaq: MBLY) have entered into a strategic collaboration for series production of premium ADAS solutions. In future models, Porsche plans to offer automated assistance and navigate-on-pilot functions based on the Mobileye SuperVision™ technology platform.
“Mobileye is one of the world’s leading providers of automated driving functions. This technology will help us forge ahead with our strategy of modern, sporty luxury,” says Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche. “We are combining an outstanding product with a highly personal experience. The desires and lifestyles of our customers are important to us. We want to exceed expectations again and again – and that’s exactly what we’re doing with world-class partners like Mobileye.”
Porsche will take a leading role in the full integration of Mobileye SuperVision™ into its future models. To ensure a brand-worthy driving experience, the systems will be integrated and tuned by Porsche engineers. The system that monitors the driver’s attention will also be customized by the company’s in-house specialists. The same applies to its integration in the intuitive user interface of the Porsche Communication Management system.
“We are delighted to work together with Porsche to bring the next generation of driving technology to customers around the world,” says Prof. Amnon Shashua, President and CEO of Mobileye. “Like Porsche, we are driven by the goal of using technological innovations to improve the driving experience at world-class level. We developed the Mobileye SuperVision™ system to enhance safety through the synergetic interaction of the driver and the vehicle.”
“In most situations, drivers will continue to want to drive a Porsche themselves in the future – and will be able to do so at any time. This said, there are certain aspects of partially automated driving that we are interested in. Intelligent systems like Mobileye SuperVision™ technology can aid the driver in everyday situations, for example by not having to keep their hands on the wheel the entire time in traffic jams,” says Michael Steiner, Board Member for Research and Development at Porsche and Head of Development at the Volkswagen Group. In the field of automated driving functions, the Volkswagen Group is already collaborating with Bosch and Qualcomm and in China with Horizon Robotics.
Mobileye SuperVision™ is one of the most advanced driver assistance systems in the world. The system enables drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel on various road types while visually monitoring their surroundings, depending on local laws and traffic situations. With Mobileye SuperVision™, cars can follow the navigation routes chosen by the driver, autonomously change lanes and automatically overtake slower vehicles on multi-lane roads. The system monitors the environment with eleven cameras and supporting radar fusion perception. Other components include high-resolution maps (‘Road Experience Management’) and the Mobileye EyeQ™6 High Systems-on-a-Chip (SoC). This highly efficient combination of software and hardware uses artificial intelligence to perform the driver assistance functions.
Mobileye is a proven partner of the VW Group. The Volkswagen Group has been working with Mobileye on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for years. The Mobileye SuperVision™ technology can also be used by other Group brands as a platform solution.
Perrone Robotics Intro AutoCampus
Perrone Robotics, Inc. (“Perrone”), the industry’s leading autonomous vehicle (AV) kit and turnkey AV solutions provider, annonce “AutoCampus”, a new turnkey AV deployment program for universities and college campuses. Under the AutoCampus program, a standard vehicle platform, complete AV configuration, lease-based pricing model, contract vehicle, as well as full service commissioning, support, and training of operations is offered to universities and colleges. AVs provided under the program can be used by universities and colleges for day-to-day campus shuttle operations, V.I.P. shuttle service and demonstrations, and for incorporation into R&D programs.
The initial vehicle platform offered under the program is a zero emissions all electric Ford E-Transit van with seating capacities of up to 12 passengers and optional ADA-compliant wheelchair accessible configuration. The Ford E-Transit is a Buy America compliant and FMVSS compliant vehicle capable of operation on public roads. Each vehicle is equipped with Perrone’s TONY AV Kit bringing Level 4 autonomy for mapped zones of operation on campuses.
Perrone has partnered with Global Finance Group (GFG) to provide affordable access to leasing of the vehicles and technology for those participating in the program. By lowering the financial barriers to this technology, Perrone and GFG open the doors for universities and colleges to bring fully functional autonomy to their communities for safe, reliable, and affordable transportation.
Perrone is building on a long tradition of working with universities and colleges in bringing their AV technology to provide operations and to also serve as R&D platforms on campuses. Perrone has a history of working with institutions of higher learning including current work with the University of Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Johns Hopkins University, University of Hawaii, University of Virginia, Eastern Michigan University, and Drexel University.
“Having been immersed in, affiliated with, or surrounded by universities for over 35 years, I know the special challenges that can exist in getting around on a large campus. Many of us have that same recurring dream of being late for your classes or an exam.”, states Paul Perrone, CEO of Perrone Robotics. “With our autonomous solution for mapped zones of operation, we’ve been bringing turnkey autonomous transit vehicles to a wide variety of campuses. With the AutoCampus program and our partnership with GFG, we are now able to combine the vehicles, leasing, and services into one cohesive package to make procurement and adoption easy and repeatable.”
Under the AutoCampus program, Perrone and GFG are able to offer a dynamic and groundbreaking end to end package. The AutoCampus program is inclusive of a zero emissions, ADA-compliant, Buy America compliant, and FMVSS compliant vehicle; integrated autonomous technology, operations training, and support; bundled in a monthly lease payment. GFG works with academic institutions to ensure that they have the best possible rate and terms that the market has to offer.
Ouster LiDAR for Motional
Ouster, Inc. (NYSE: OUST), a leading provider of high-performance lidar sensors, announced today that Motional, a global leader in driverless technology, has selected Ouster as the exclusive provider of long-range lidar sensors for its all-electric IONIQ 5-based robotaxis. The serial production agreement will see Ouster supply Motional with Alpha Prime™ VLS-128 sensors through 2026.
A culmination of ten years of lidar development and learning from millions of road miles, the Alpha Prime™ long-range sensor is specifically designed for autonomous driving and advanced vehicle safety at highway speeds. It provides real-time 3D data up to 0.1-degree vertical and horizontal resolution with up to 300-meter range and 360° surround view.
“The Alpha Prime™ delivers the long-range, high-performance capabilities we need for our autonomous vehicle,” said Laura Major, Chief Technology Officer at Motional. “Long-range lidar is an important part of Motional’s multi-modal sensor strategy, which includes over 30 sensors carefully integrated into the IONIQ 5 robotaxi design. This sensor suite provides 360-degree vision and enables safe fully driverless operation across diverse driving environments and conditions.”
Founded in 2020 as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is a leader in driverless technology and deploys its Level 4 autonomous vehicles (AVs) for ride-hail and on-demand delivery applications. Motional has unparalleled commercial experience and has operated a public robotaxi service in Las Vegas for over five years. Motional has already begun implementing Alpha Prime™ sensors on its IONIQ 5 robotaxis deployed for Motional’s commercial operations in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and its testing operations in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Singapore.
“Motional is a leading AV company with large-scale deployments and strong commercial partnerships,” said Angus Pacala, CEO and Co-founder at Ouster. “We’re excited to be the exclusive long-range lidar on Motional’s IONIQ 5 robotaxis being deployed globally. The Alpha Prime™ is a powerful addition to our product portfolio, and one that we expect will continue to drive meaningful new business, particularly for autonomous vehicles.”
Faction Partners with Acrimoto
Faction Technology, Inc., a self-driving technology provider for low-cost driverless fleets, and Arcimoto, Inc. (NASDAQ: FUV), the leading North American manufacturer of ultra-efficient and affordable electric vehicles, announced a strategic and joint investment agreement to scale driverless vehicle fleets.
The combination of Faction’s DriveLink® and TeleAssist® technologies allows Arcimoto platform vehicles to integrate driverless capabilities with the ability for remote human teleoperation. This driverless vehicle system is designed to maintain the core strengths of the Arcimoto platform, including a top speed of 75 mph and a range of just over 100 miles. Faction’s technology can be applied to any variant of the Arcimoto vehicle, providing a customizable and versatile solution for fleet customers in the logistics and transportation sectors. By integrating their respective technologies, Arcimoto and Faction aim to offer a highly efficient, eco-friendly, and economical solution for urban mobility, while also reducing carbon emissions.
“Developing a scalable driverless vehicle system requires a fundamental reimagining of the engineering design, starting from the chassis up. Partnering with Arcimoto allows us to accelerate the deployment of driverless fleets, far surpassing the capabilities of legacy vehicle designs,” stated Ain McKendrick, CEO of Faction. “The Arcimoto vehicle platform has been thoughtfully designed with scalability in mind, making it an ideal platform for the integration of self-driving technology. The collaborative efforts of our engineering teams have resulted in a plan for the mass production of driverless vehicles with minimal configuration changes to the Arcimoto production line.”
Faction and Arcimoto have identified fleet customers in the logistics and transportation sectors as their primary target market for their driverless electric vehicle solution. Both companies share the belief that right-sizing these vehicles will provide a significant boost in efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and offer cost savings over existing urban mobility offerings. The combination of Faction’s self-driving technology with Arcimoto’s ultra-efficient and affordable electric vehicles offers a highly scalable solution that can be quickly deployed to meet increasing demand for efficient transportation.
Chris Dawson, Arcimoto CEO said, “Our shared mission to deploy ultra-efficient electric vehicles at scale is now further strengthened by incorporating Faction’s advanced technology into our platform. Combining Arcimoto’s robust engineering capabilities with Faction’s self-driving technology enables us to provide highly customizable, sustainable, and cost-effective transportation solutions to commercial customers. This milestone in our partnership marks a significant step forward in our goal to revolutionize the urban mobility landscape, and we are excited to see the results of our continued collaboration.”
In addition to the expanded commercial development relationship, Arcimoto and Faction have announced an investment agreement that allows the companies to take an equity stake in each other. Under the agreement, Arcimoto will make a strategic investment in Faction and Faction will receive an equity stake in Arcimoto. The partnership aims to leverage the strengths of each company to drive innovation and growth in the electric vehicle and driverless technology space, with a focus on being the most eco-friendly and socially responsible solutions for mobility. The investment agreement is expected to benefit both companies as they continue to pursue their shared vision of a more sustainable future.
onsemi Intros Hyperlux
onsemi (Nasdaq: ON), a leader in intelligent power and sensing technologies, announced the launch of its Hyperlux™ automotive image sensor family. With a 2.1 µm pixel size, industry-leading 150dB ultra high dynamic range (HDR) and LED flicker mitigation (LFM) across the full automotive temperature range, the Hyperlux family provides high performance, speed and advanced features to propel the next generation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) forward. It also enables a smooth transition to Level 2+ driving automation, which requires the driver to only take over when alerted by the technology.
The Hyperlux family spans products with resolutions from 3 megapixel (MP) to 8 MP and higher, catering to both sensing and viewing camera applications. With an HDR of 150 dB, it captures high quality images under the most extreme lighting conditions without sacrificing lowlight sensitivity. The LFM capability of the platform ensures that pulsed light sources do not appear to flicker and thereby avoids flicker-induced machine vision issues.
“The simultaneous HDR and LFM capabilities ensure that the potential hazard can be identified in either very dark or bright scenes, critical to ADAS and in-cabin applications,” said Huohong Jiang, Deputy General Manager of the Intelligent Driving Sensor Business Unit at Desay SV. “With the new Hyperlux technology, automotive OEMs and tier ones can expect proven high performance in all operating conditions to accelerate more advanced safety and convenience features.”
Reinforcing onsemi’s position as a market leader in automotive grade image sensors, the Hyperlux product family boasts the industry’s lowest power consumption and smallest footprint. By using up to 30% less power and having an up to 28% smaller footprint than competing devices, the automotive image sensors deliver energy-efficient designs with the lowest system material cost. As more electronic content, including image sensors, gets added to cars, it is crucial that the content is as small as possible to fit in existing designs while not disrupting the internal and external style of the vehicle.
“As vehicles become more connected and move closer to autonomy, the importance of safety and security is more critical than ever,” said Chris Adams, vice president, Automotive Sensing Division at onsemi. “Our knowledge of automotive applications and trends, along with our engineering expertise in image sensing enable our customers to develop next-generation products that bring us closer to the Vision Zero initiative, a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries.”
Hyperlux is designed to meet the stringent safety requirements of Automotive Safety Integrity Level D (ASIL D) systems, while integrated security gives the highest coverage to cybersecurity threats. These sensors also offer a dual output stream at differing resolutions, allowing sensing and other functions to be performed simultaneously. Designers can benefit from the flexible architecture for the use of a single camera for multiple functions, reducing design time, risk and cost.
The first two sensors of the Hyperlux product family, AR0823AT and AR0341AT, are now sampling for early access customers. onsemi will be showcasing Hyperlux alongside other intelligent power and sensing technologies at AutoSens Detroit, May 9-11, 2023.
Cepton NVIDIA Omniverse
Cepton, Inc. (“Cepton” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: CPTN), a Silicon Valley innovator and leader in high-performance lidar solutions, announced that it is collaborating with NVIDIA to integrate its Vista-X120 Plus lidar into DRIVE Sim, an end-to-end simulation platform built on Omniverse.
As a member of the Omniverse ecosystem, Cepton’s announcement builds on previous integrations of its automotive lidar models for developing and testing autonomous driving algorithms, sensors and software. Using models of its Nova and Vista-X90 lidars, Cepton was one of the first lidar companies to showcase a 360°-coverage, dual-range lidar simulation, enabling both near-range blind spot elimination and long-range obstacle detection.
Now, with the addition of the Vista-X120 Plus model, Cepton is providing automakers and AV developers access to simulated sensor data from this award-winning adaptive lidar for use in their technology development. The showcased video features simulated point clouds generated from a Vista-X120 Plus sensor integrated into the roof of the ego vehicle. The model can also be configured to visualize the sensor’s performance based on placement.
In addition to Vista-X120 Plus’ ultra-high resolution and long range, the Omniverse integration also features a software-definable region of interest (ROI), which enables the lidar to achieve an optimized balance between performance and power efficiency across different driving scenarios.
“As the video demonstrates, our Vista-X120 Plus enables adaptive 3D perception capabilities that can truly help vehicles focus on what matters on the road,” said Dr. Dongyi Liao, Chief Technology Officer at Cepton. “Requirements on a lidar’s range, resolution and power consumption vary across different use cases, for example, highway cruising and navigating a busy neighborhood. With a software-definable ROI, Vista-X120 Plus provides an extremely flexible and versatile solution for assisted and autonomous driving.”
Brunno Moretti, Vice President of Product, adds, “With the automotive industry’s rapid transformation towards safer, smarter and greener mobility, digitalization has become key to streamlining every part of the automotive development, including lidar deployment. With the high-fidelity Vista-X120 Plus simulation on NVIDIA DRIVE Sim, we can help our automotive customers accelerate their development efforts while saving cost on physical installation and testing.”
Zvi Greenstein, General Manager at NVIDIA, said: “The addition of the Cepton Vista-X120 Plus lidar model to NVIDIA Omniverse provides greater flexibility to AV developers, accelerating technology development and reducing cost.”
Vista-X120 Plus is packed with Cepton’s next-generation lidar technology to significantly elevate performance without compromising reliability, size, power efficiency and cost. Learn more at https://www.cepton.com/vista-x120-plus/reveal.
With its expanded library of automotive lidar models, Cepton will support a broadened range of simulation on NVIDIA Omniverse to help automakers visualize and evaluate sensor capabilities across various products, integration solutions and driving scenarios.
Nuro Cuts Costs & Employees
There is a fundamental tension in the development of self driving between capital efficiency and speed to building an initial service. We have historically invested heavily in deploying commercial services and have learned a great deal from our customers. But commercial deployments come at a significant cost, both in terms of resources and autonomy focus. And until the unit economics of these services make sense, we think it is prudent to focus on what we can do efficiently as a startup.
Going forward, we will change our approach to building the Nuro business. While in the past we developed autonomy systems, designed and built custom vehicles, and deployed commercial pilots with partners in parallel, we will now pursue a more sequential development model.
At the center of this new approach is our hyper focus on autonomy. Recent advancements in AI have increased our confidence and ability to reach true generalized and scaled autonomy faster. We have invested in AI and ML from day one, and a large portion of our autonomy stack is already directly learnable from data. Our focus now will be on making our autonomy stack even more data driven, enabling us to scale to larger operating areas even more rapidly.
In addition, we will delay the previously planned production line of our third generation vehicle, reduce the scale of our commercial pilots in the near term, and explore more efficient deployment models with partners. This focus on accelerating autonomy progress and sequential development of our service will provide a leaner model for AV development, and will more than double our runway from about 1.5 years to nearly 3.5 years.
Unfortunately, implementing this new roadmap means making difficult choices around where we focus our efforts and where we cut or pause spending. Last month, we offered voluntary separation packages to some employees, and we will implement a planned reduction in force later this week. This change weighs on us most. We are deeply inspired by the dedication and passion of our colleagues and every step we take after this will be with gratitude for the hard work and contributions of the colleagues who will be leaving us.
