The Volkswagen Group’s Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen brands are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to identify sustainability risks such as environmental pollution, human rights abuses and corruption at an early stage—not only among direct business partners but also at the lower levels of their supply chain. The basis for this monitoring... Read more →

Recogni Inc., the developers of an AI vision cognition system for autonomous vehicles, raised $48.9 million in a Series B financing round, led by WRVI Capital, a prominent global technology investor. The proceeds will help Recogni bring its perception platform to market and expand its engineering and go-to-market teams. In... Read more →

A new report by the EC’s Joint Research Center (JRC) and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) examines cybersecurity risks connected to artificial intelligence (AI) in autonomous vehicles and provides recommendations for mitigating them. By removing the most common cause of traffic accidents—the human driver—autonomous vehicles are expected to... Read more →

Renesas Electronics Corporation introduced an update of its R-Car V3H system-on-chip (SoC) to deliver significantly improved deep learning performance for smart camera applications, including driver and occupant monitoring systems (DMS / OMS); automotive front cameras; surround view; and auto parking for high-volume vehicles up to Level 2+. The updated SoC... Read more →

Ford and Google announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the transformation of Ford’s customer experience. Ford also named Google Cloud its preferred cloud provider to leverage Google’s expertise in data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). As part of this new, six-year partnership—and beginning in 2023—millions of future Ford... Read more →

The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) has selected 13 additional academic institutions to participate in the next five-year phase of its collaborative research program. These universities join MIT, Stanford and the University of Michigan which have worked with TRI over the last five years to expand the body of research into... Read more →

A team from Georgia Tech has developed an AI that can analyze user reviews of electric vehicle charging stations, allowing it accurately to identify places where there are insufficient or out-of-service stations. An open-access paper on the work is published in the journal Patterns. We’re spending billions of both public... Read more →

Researchers at Toyota Research Institute (TRI) are conducting research with Stanford’s Dynamic Design Lab into how to bring together the instincts of professional drift drivers and automated driving technology. Thee goal is to design a new level of active safety technology and share it broadly so that Toyota and other... Read more →

Eyeris Technologies, Inc., a developer of vision AI for in-cabin sensing, is collaborating with Texas Instruments (TI) on an industry-first in-cabin sensing AI solution using TI’s Jacinto TDA4 processors and 2D RGB-IR image sensors. D3 Engineering designs products and integrates technologies from TI and Eyeris using its DesignCore platform to... Read more →

Baidu, Inc., a leading China-based Internet platform and AI company, plans to establish a company to produce intelligent electric vehicles (EV), and that it has entered into a strategic partnership with multinational auto manufacturer Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. Baidu will provide intelligent driving capabilities to power the passenger vehicles for... Read more →

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed a new machine-learning-based tool to help urban transportation analysts relieve bottlenecks and chokepoints that routinely snarl city traffic. The tool—Transportation State Estimation Capability (TranSEC)—was developed to help urban traffic engineers get access to actionable information about traffic patterns in their cities.... Read more →

Porsche Digital is expanding its product portfolio. The digital assistant “Sounce” offers an improved ability to detect noise—for example, during vehicle component tests. Among other things, the aim is to improve the development and production of components in the automotive industry. The technology, which uses deep learning methods, can reliably... Read more →

Ride Vision is launching globally the first collision-avoidance technology for motorcycles, an AI-based system for motorcycle safety. Ride Vision is buttressed by $7 million in Series A funding, totalling $10 million to-date, as well as a partnership with Continental AG. There are more than 700 million motorcycles on the road... Read more →

FLIR Systems, Inc. announced two intelligent traffic system cameras, the FLIR ThermiCam AI (sold as the TrafiSense AI camera in the US and Canada) with thermal imaging and the FLIR TrafiCam AI visible camera, both with artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize traffic flow on roadways and at intersections. When combined... Read more →

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is a central element of the digital transformation process at the BMW Group. The BMW Group already uses AI throughout the value chain to generate added value for customers, products, employees and processes. The BMW Group continues to follow global developments in terms of... Read more →

Traxen, a metro Detroit-based technology, launched its intelligent adaptive cruise control system, iQ-Cruise, for traditional and electric commercial vehicles. The system will be available to both commercial vehicle aftermarket and OE customers. Through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), advanced algorithms and sensors, iQ-Cruise can reduce fuel consumption by an... Read more →

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced more than $1 billion in awards for the establishment of 12 new artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum information science (QIS) research institutes nationwide. The $1 billion will go... Read more →

Groupe Renault and Google Cloud announced a new industrial and technology partnership to accelerate the digitization of Groupe Renault’s industrial system and of Industry 4.0 transformation. A recognized contributor to Industry 4.0, Groupe Renault has been developing its own digital platform since 2016 to connect and to aggregate industrial data... Read more →

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed a novel machine learning approach quickly to enhance the resolution of wind velocity data by 50 times and solar irradiance data by 25 times—an enhancement that had yet to be achieved with climate data. The... Read more →

Cambridge Consultants, part of the Capgemini Group, has introduced EnfuseNet, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system for autonomous vehicles. EnfuseNet fuses data from low-cost sensors and cameras—hardware costing just tens of dollars—to generate high-resolution depth data, the ideal reference point for autonomous systems. The result is very low-cost, high-resolution depth data... Read more →

Using radar commonly deployed to track speeders and fastballs, researchers have developed an automated system that will allow cars to peer around corners and spot oncoming traffic and pedestrians. Researchers combined artificial intelligence and radar used to track speeders to develop a system that will allow vehicles to spot hazards... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz and NVIDIA plan to enter into a cooperation to create a new in-vehicle computing system and AI computing infrastructure. Starting in 2024, this will be rolled out across the fleet of next-generation Mercedes-Benz vehicles, enabling them with upgradable automated driving functions. The new software-defined architecture will be built on... Read more →

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have shown that they can significantly improve the accuracy of autonomous vehicles’ detection of objects such as other cars or pedestrians by helping the vehicle also recognize what it doesn’t see. CMU research shows that what a self-driving car doesn’t see (in green) is as... Read more →

Venti Technologies has successfully deployed two autonomous SUVs built by SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile (SGMW), the joint venture formed by Chinese automakers SAIC and Wuling, along with GM, achieving another milestone in its path to commercialization. The two autonomous SUVs were deployed at a school at Nanning City, the capital of Guangxi... Read more →

Dürr is announcing the availability of the first market-ready AI application for paint shops: Advanced Analytics. The solution, which combines the latest IT technology and mechanical engineering expertise, identifies sources of defects and determines optimal maintenance schedules. It also tracks previously unknown correlations and uses the knowledge to adapt the... Read more →

BMW Group has selected the new NVIDIA Isaac robotics platform to enhance its automotive factories, utilizing logistics robots built on advanced AI computing and visualization technologies. The collaboration centers on implementing an end-to-end system based on NVIDIA technologies—from training and testing through to deployment—with robots developed using one software architecture,... Read more →

Researchers from Duke University have devised a computer vision algorithm for estimating ground-level PM2.5 at a high spatiotemporal resolution by directly processing global-coverage, daily, near real-time updated, micro-satellite imagery of spatial coverages significantly smaller than 1 x 1 km (e.g., 200 x 200 m) available from Planet Lab. The results appear in... Read more →

Fujitsu Limited announced the results of a joint field trial with the Japan Coast Guard to predict vessel collisions with AI technology, demonstrating its usefulness in detecting collision risks early and minimizing the danger of such accidents. The trial in Japan marine traffic control was conducted from December 2019 to... Read more →

Karma Automotive introduced its SAEnLevel 4 autonomous van with a battery electric vehicle (BEV) architecture, one of five platforms designed to offer new electric mobility solutions through highly versatile EREV (extended range electric vehicle) and BEV chassis systems. Karma’s new L4 E-Flex Van is powered by the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX... Read more →

When searching through theoretical lists of possible new materials for particular applications, such as batteries or other energy-related devices, there are often millions of potential materials that could be considered, and multiple criteria that need to be met and optimized at once. Now, researchers at MIT have found a way... Read more →

A data-driven simulation system invented at MIT, in collaboration with the Toyota Research Institute, to train driverless cars creates a photorealistic world with infinite steering possibilities, helping the cars learn to navigate a host of worse-case scenarios before cruising down real streets. Control systems for autonomous vehicles largely rely on... Read more →

The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) is expanding its exploratory research with the launch of Machine Assisted Cognition (MAC), a new initiative to develop and demonstrate artificial intelligence tools that can understand and predict human behavior in the context of decision making. A key pillar of TRI’s charter is to explore... Read more →

In a recent Leaderboard report, Navigant Research ranks NVIDIA as the leading automated driving compute platform. Navigant ranks companies in this report on 10 criteria: vision; go-to market strategy; partners; production strategy; technology; sales, marketing, and distribution; product capability; product quality and reliability; product portfolio; and staying power. Automated Vehicle... Read more →

At the Bosch Connected World 2020 (BCW) conference in Berlin, Human Horizons initiated an agreement with Bosch Connected Mobility Solutions for further cooperation on Bosch’s Battery in the Cloud technology. (Earlier post.) This technology connects electric-vehicle batteries with the cloud to extend battery life, substantially improve the battery’s performance and... Read more →

Approximately 6 billion gallons of fuel are wasted in the US each year as vehicles wait at stop lights or sit in dense traffic with engines idling, according to US Department of Energy estimates. The least efficient of these vehicles are the large, heavy trucks used for hauling goods—they burn... Read more →

At every stage of the battery development process, new technologies must be tested for months or even years to determine how long they will last. Now, a team led by Stanford professors Stefano Ermon and William Chueh has developed a machine learning-based method that slashes these testing times by 98%.... Read more →

China-based ThunderSoft, an operating system technology provider, and Didi Chuxing announced a strategic collaboration focused on intelligent automotive operating system products and solutions for automotive manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers. This partnership is intended to accelerate the development of the Intelligent Connected Vehicle (ICV) by combining ThunderSoft’s OS technology and... Read more →

A model developed by Researchers at MIT and Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) have developed a model that uses satellite imagery to tag road features in digital maps to help improve GPS navigation. Showing drivers more details about their routes can often help them navigate in unfamiliar locations. Lane counts,... Read more →

BMW i Ventures has invested in Alitheon, an optical AI software creator and deep-tech startup developing generative engineering software aimed at automating the product development process. All objects—even those that are indistinguishable to the human eye—have unique surface characteristics. Alitheon’s FeaturePrint technology uses off-the-shelf cameras and proprietary software to identify... Read more →

NVIDIA will provide the transportation industry with access to its NVIDIA DRIVE deep neural networks (DNNs) for autonomous vehicle development on the NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) container registry. NVIDIA DRIVE has become a de facto standard for AV development, used broadly by automakers, truck manufacturers, robotaxi companies, software companies and... Read more →

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has approved a proposal to develop a standard for safety considerations in automated vehicle (AV) decision-making and named Intel Senior Principal Engineer Jack Weast to lead the workgroup. The new standard—IEEE 2846—will establish a formal rules-based mathematical model for automated vehicle decision-making... Read more →

Oxbotica, an autonomous vehicle software spinout from Oxford University, has signed an MoU with ZF to integrate its autonomous driving software with ZF’s automotive-grade ProAI compute platform and sensor sets. (Earlier post.) Oxbotica provides a full suite of Universal Autonomy software that is fully modular, has low compute power requirements... Read more →

The BMW Group uses a growing number of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in production. For example, AI relieves workers of monotonous tasks such as checking whether the warning triangle is placed in the right spot in the trunk. This task is now performed by a camera and self-learning software that... Read more →

Volvo Group Venture Capital AB has invested in Apex.AI, a a Palo Alto, California-based software company in the field of autonomous mobility. The investment will fund the development of a safety-certified software framework for autonomous systems, Apex.OS. Apex.AI is building an automotive-grade version of ROS (Robot Operating System), an established... Read more →

Global tire maker announced that the company showed tangible results in its efforts for technology based innovation and digital transformation by developing the Virtual Compound Design (VCD) system, a predictive model for tire compound properties using artificial intelligence. The VCD system predicts the characteristics of compounds and draws the most... Read more →

MIT and Toyota researchers have designed a new model to help autonomous vehicles determine when it’s safe to merge into traffic at intersections with obstructed views. Their paper is published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. In 2016, roughly 23% of fatal and 32% of nonfatal US traffic accidents occurred... Read more →

Israel-based NoTraffic has developed a turnkey traffic management platform powered by V2I communication & real-time optimization of signalized intersections. The system is based on a smart network of plug-and-play AI sensors that can transform every signalized intersection to a smart one. In less than one hour, users are able to... Read more →

Toshiba Digital & Consulting Corporation (TDX) and Spain’s Gestamp, a multinational specialized in the design, development and manufacture of highly engineered metal components for top vehicle manufacturers, are cooperating in a project to bring advanced monitoring and analysis to the welding of vehicle chassis parts. By drawing on know-how from... Read more →

Audi is now developing software robots (bots) to carry out monotonous tasks for employees at PC workstations. The digital robots can perform tasks such as entering data or creating standardized reports faster, more efficiently and without errors. The company wants to relieve its employees of such work so that they... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Group has developed what it says it the world’s first Machine-Learning-based Smart Cruise Control (SCC-ML)—a technology that incorporates the driver’s patterns into its self-driving behavior, creating a custom experience for the driver. The technology incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) within the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) feature. The system... Read more →