Nissan LEAF’s leap to automated parking is a testament to the fact that lower-priced cars can now offer automated car features. That’s partly due to the availability of chip and software solutions that car OEMs and Tier 1 companies can quickly customize to create surround view-based auto-parking systems.
Computer machine vision systems for cars are suddenly evolved due to the advanced research around autonomy. The automotive industry is spending billions to develop fully self-driving cars, but the real product being sold will be much smaller chunks of the safety advantages.
This is a nice WIN for Intel infotainment (aka Software defined cockpit) with a boutique automaker. Don’t confuse this with the previous Intel/Mobileye LOSS at Tesla (it would appear nvidia still has the autonomy ECU with Tesla). It must be very confusing these days at Tesla purchasing to negotiate with Intel since they now own the former divorced supplier.
Owner Dan Gilbert announced the plan to bus staff to and from a parking structure Wednesday during an event at the Technology in Motion conference at Cobo Center.
It delivers robust functional safety and high performance at lowpower consumption required for use in smart camera applications, surround view systems, and lidars, including NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) features.
Scalability is the big differentiator here in camera based automated driving systems. Parking assist becomes an automated parking system which becomes a fully autonomous car using the same technology, otherwise the constant reinvention will prevent innovation.
Automated valet parking is a great example of a controlled environment where early level 4/5 vehicles can play. But will people be willing to pay more for their car and the parking lot upgrades?
The DSRC/802.11p version of V2X delivers minimum latency for real-time communication and an operating range that exceeds 1 mile even in areas where cellular network connections are not available
Assuming the Qualcomm acquisition of NXP completes, there will likely be some challenges merging the product roadmaps for these two companies V2X offerings, one based on DSRC the other tied to 5G.
The bill is passed would allow automakers to obtain exemptions to deploy up to 25,000 vehicles without meeting existing auto safety standards in the first year, a cap that would rise to 100,000 vehicles annually over three years
…and yes they hand built 130 of them so far, complete with a totally unrealistic liquid cooled server bank that takes five workers to install and fills the trunk space entirely (https://youtu.be/ep23MCHaLLk?t=34). I think there is more work to be done still.
“We still strongly believe in the multi-modal approach that helped our team cross the finish line 10 years ago in the historic DARPA Urban Challenge,” Fleming said. “It uses the strength of each sensor across the broad range of challenging driving environments. Radar excels in situations where cameras would not, such as rain, fog, or night driving.”
It’s interesting to see how much the DARPA Urban Challenge has influenced current thinking of autonomous. 10 years ago rack and pinion gears were strapped to steering wheels to drive the cars. Have we really advanced enough to go into production?
“As part of our efforts to promote the spread of the driving assistant technologies, Nissan has been the pioneer in the industry in around view monitor implementation thanks to Renesas’ image processors,” said Takashi Yoshizawa, Vice President and Alliance Global Director of EE and Systems Engineering Division, at Nissan Motor Corporation
Somewhat in contrast with industry hype, carmakers make realistic investments in collaboration with technology suppliers to ensure safety is held paramount regarding driver assistance. Full autonomy will take time and many innovations will add up to solve this challenge in a practical way.