Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) has selected Waymo as its exclusive, strategic technology partner for L4 fully self-driving technology across FCA’s full product portfolio.
Waymo will also work exclusively with FCA as its preferred partner on the development and testing of L4 autonomous light commercial vehicles for the movement of goods, including in the Waymo Via vehicle.
Autonomous Vehicles
Autonomous Vehicles
Plus.ai, Transportation Research Center partnering to conduct capability tests of Plus.ai's self-driving system
Plus.ai has announced an agreement with North America’s largest independent vehicle test facility and proving grounds, the Transportation Research Center (TRC), to conduct capability tests of Plus.ai’s self-driving system using a rigorous multi-vehicle approach.
Expected to break new ground in Level 4 commercial vehicle testing, this test program will utilize a multi-vehicle test approach to simulate complex, real-world driving conditions. Current published standards only require a single other vehicle test, Plus.ai notes.
AutoX receives permit to test driverless vehicles in San Jose, California
On Friday, July 17, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) issued self-driving car tech company AutoX a permit that authorizes the company to test driverless vehicles on surface streets within a designated part of San Jose, California, pursuant to state law and regulation.
Navistar, TuSimple partner to co-develop SAE Level 4 self-driving semi-trucks
Navistar International Corporation and TuSimple have entered into a strategic partnership to co-develop SAE Level 4 self-driving semi-trucks targeted for production by 2024.
The strategic partnership is the result of a successful technical relationship between the companies for more than two years. Navistar has also taken a minority stake in TuSimple.
“Navistar’s strategic partnership with TuSimple positions us to be a leader in developing solutions for our customers by leveraging our organizations’ collective expertise to integrate our vehicle design and systems integration capabilities with TuSimple’s innovative autonomous technology,” says Persio Lisboa, president and CEO, Navistar.
Navya launches level 4 fully autonomous shuttle service in France
Navya has announced that on June 22, the company launched a level 4 fully autonomous shuttle service, which means there is no safety operator on board the vehicle.
In partnership with Keolis, the service launched at the National Sport Shooting Centre (NSSC) in Châteauroux, France. Since the launch of the service, the shuttle, known as the “Autonom Shuttle Evo,” has been operating within the National Shooting Sport Centre, providing athletes and visitors with a way to move from the car park to the reception area.
The shuttle operates at a maximum speed of 18 kilometers per hour along the 1.5-kilometer route.
Weekend Roundup: July 10, 2020
This Week (and last week) in the Unmanned Systems and Robotics World
Parrot has made several announcements over the last few weeks. Last week, the company announced the launch of its ANAFI USA drone, which is designed for first responders and enterprise professionals. This week, the company announced partnerships with Hoverseen and the Airborne International Response Team (AIRT), respectively.
UC Riverside engineers awarded grant to develop new generation of GPUs for autonomous systems
The National Science Foundation has awarded three University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) engineers a $1.2 million grant to develop a new generation of energy-efficient, energy-elastic, and real-time-aware Graphics processing units (GPUs) that can be used in resource-constrained environments such as emerging embedded and autonomous systems, including UAS and autonomous vehicles.
Daniel Wong, Hyoseung Kim, and Nael Abu-Ghazaleh are the recipients of the grant. All three are Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering faculty members, and are professors of electrical and computer engineering.
Amazon acquires autonomous vehicle company Zoox
Amazon has signed an agreement to acquire autonomous vehicle company Zoox.
Described as a “forward-thinking team that is pioneering the future of ride-hailing by designing autonomous technology from the ground up with passengers front-of-mind,” Zoox will continue to operate as a standalone business under its current leadership of Aicha Evans, Zoox CEO, and Jesse Levinson, Zoox co-founder and CTO.
“Zoox is working to imagine, invent, and design a world-class autonomous ride-hailing experience,” says Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s CEO, Worldwide Consumer.
Weekend Roundup: June 26, 2020
This Week in the Unmanned Systems and Robotics World
The Royal Navy has launched its first crewless boat for general duties. The autonomous Pacific 24 is ready for testing to see how it and similar vehicles might fit into the ‘fleet of tomorrow.’ (The Royal Navy)
Mercedes-Benz, NVIDIA to create new software-defined architecture to enable autonomous driving
Mercedes-Benz and NVIDIA have announced that they will work together to create a 'revolutionary' in-vehicle computing system and artificial intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure.
Expected to be rolled out across the fleet of next-generation Mercedes-Benz vehicles starting in 2024, the technology will equip the vehicles with upgradable automated driving functions.
The new software-defined architecture will be built on the NVIDIA DRIVE platform. It will be standard in Mercedes-Benz’s next-generation fleet, enabling state-of-the-art automated driving functionalities.
