In autonomous and self-driving vehicle news are Telsa, Ford, Latitude AI, Faction Tech, GoCar, RoboSense & Arbe.
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Telsa Stops New FSF for Now
Tesla has stopped installing Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software in the US and Canada until an OTA update is issued to address a NHTSA recall.
New Ford Sub Latitude AI for Self-Driving
Ford Motor Company has established Latitude AI, a wholly owned subsidiary focused on developing a hands-free, ey
With the formation of Latitude, Ford adds a leading team of machine learning, robotics, software, sensors, systems engineering and operations talent as the automaker grows and expands its development efforts in automated driving technology – including advancements in Ford BlueCruise, which already has accumulated more than 50 million miles of hands-free driving.
Latitude is reimagining the customer experience by automating driving during times that can be tedious, stressful and unpleasant, such as bumper-to-bumper traffic or on long stretches of highway. The average driver in the U.S. spends nearly 100 hours a year sitting in traffic according to the transportation analytics firm INRIX.
“We see automated driving technology as an opportunity to redefine the relationship between people and their vehicles,” said Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer, Ford Motor Company. “Customers using BlueCruise are already experiencing the benefits of hands-off driving. The deep experience and talent in our Latitude team will help us accelerate the development of all-new automated driving technology – with the goal of not only making travel safer, less stressful and more enjoyable, but ultimately over time giving our customers some of their day back.”
Establishing Latitude supports Ford’s strategic shift last year to focus on automated driving technologies for personally owned vehicles. Ford hired about 550 employees formerly of Argo AI across machine learning and robotics, cloud platforms, mapping, sensors and compute systems, test operations, systems and safety engineering. The Latitude team has applied much of their experience in automated driving, including software development tools and infrastructure, in the pivot to work on advanced driver assist systems (ADAS).
Sammy Omari, executive director, ADAS Technologies at Ford, also will serve as the CEO of Latitude. Peter Carr is appointed chief technology officer, overseeing Latitude’s product and technical development, and David Gollob is named president, with responsibility for business operations.
“We believe automated driving technology will help improve safety while unlocking all-new customer experiences that reduce stress and in the future will help free up a driver’s time to focus on what they choose,” said Omari. “The expertise of the Latitude team will further complement and enhance Ford’s in-house global ADAS team in developing future driver assist technologies, ultimately delivering on the many benefits of automation.”
Latitude is headquartered in Pittsburgh with additional engineering hubs in Dearborn, Mich. and Palo Alto, Calif. The company also will operate a highway-speed test track facility in Greenville, S.C.
Faction Tech Offers Commercial Services
Faction Technology, Inc., a self-driving technology provider for affordable driverless fleets, has announced the expanded commercial availability of its self-driving technologies, DriveLink® and TeleAssist®, which enable a cost effective and pragmatic approach towards a self-driving future.
Faction’s DriveLink® and TeleAssist® technologies together seamlessly blend basic driving autonomy with remote human-assisted teleoperation to effectively power self-driving systems at an advantageous price point. Its DriveLink® technology creates a digital vehicle platform for vehicle manufacturers to enable driverless technology. TeleAssist® leverages remote human assistance, similar to an air traffic controller, allowing the vehicle to run with limited human intervention. As struggles continue to mount in the fully autonomous driving space, driverless solutions like Faction’s offer a pragmatic, scalable, and cheaper alternative to fully autonomous systems.
Many vehicle OEMs are learning that it’s expensive to retrofit their vehicles with technologies that enable driverless solutions, let alone develop one entirely on their own. Faction’s technology suite provides an opportunity for OEMs to design driverless solutions into their vehicles at a fraction of the cost.
“Faction’s technology is revolutionizing the way we approach autonomous vehicles, while significantly reducing the cost of implementing these types of self-driving solutions,” said Jesse Fittipaldi, Interim CEO of Arcimoto. “Combining their technology with our vehicles can enable driverless solutions at under $2 a mile, something truly remarkable.”
In partnership with existing vehicle partners, current Faction enabled vehicle platforms cost less than $35,000, a far cry from the high-end fleets on the market today which can be in the hundreds of thousands to implement. To integrate the white-labeled platform of DriveLink® and TeleAssist® into their own vehicles, OEMs and other companies can expect to spend less than $15,000 per vehicle, creating a highly scalable and cost effective way to integrate driverless technology into their vehicles.
Faction is actively working with new OEM partners. “We’re building our fit-for-purpose electric vehicles from the ground up, and Faction’s driverless technology is an integral part of our vehicles,” said Jason Marks, CEO of Telo Trucks Inc., which is building EV trucks for urban workers and weekend adventurers. “We recognize the importance of a winning strategy for driverless delivery, and we’re solving that with a combination of the world’s most space efficient EV package and Faction’s DriveLink and TeleAssist.”
“It’s become no secret that 100% autonomy is further down the road than initially anticipated, and that’s why today’s answer to driverless vehicles is the simple, yet effective combination of human assistance and basic autonomy,” said Ain McKendrick, CEO of Faction. “Our technology enables a driverless future at a fraction of what it has already cost to try making fully autonomous vehicles a reality.”
To further advance driverless solutions within the automotive industry, Faction is keen to partner with OEMs and other manufacturers. Potential partners interested in enabling driverless solutions into their businesses should contact Faction with the information below.
GoCar Tours Use Faction Driverless Tech
GoCar Tours, the inventors of GPS-guided driving tours, announced today the grand opening of its new Las Vegas location, GoCar Las Vegas. Riders in Las Vegas can choose from a variety of tours, including the bright lights and neon signs of the Las Vegas Strip as well as another side of Las Vegas only known to locals, from the trendy murals and eclectic restaurants of the Arts District to famous Vegas movie locations. In the coming months, GoCar plans to launch longer-distance tours of Red Rocks Canyon and the iconic Hoover Dam.
Additionallrevealing combination of its chip design subsidiaries Black Forest Engineering, Optogration, and Freedom Photonics into a new unified entity, Luminar Semiconductor. Mike McAuliffe has joined as President of Luminar Semiconductor. Mike previously served as CEO of several advanced semiconductor and sensing companies, including Seeing Machines, a publicly-traded automotive semiconductor technology company.
Luminar’s strategy to bring these advanced receiver, laser and processing chip technologies in-house has enabled its unmatched lidar performance while further securing and industrializing the lidar supply chain. The company is leveraging this investment in its high-performance, specialized semiconductors beyond lidar, and Luminar Semiconductor is already powering applications for customers across a broad range of sectors from communications to medical to aerospace.
RoboSense Launches New P6
RoboSense, a world-leading provider of Smart LiDAR Sensor Systems, has announced the launch of its first automotive-grade solid-state LiDAR perception solution for L4 autonomous driving, the RS-Fusion-P6 (P6). With advanced software and hardware support from RoboSense, the P6 provides precise and intelligent environmental perception capabilities, enabling autonomous vehicles to navigate through complex driving scenarios with ease, helping to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and promoting the rapid implementation of large-scale autonomous driving commercial operations.
As an automotive-grade solid-state LiDAR perception solution, the P6 perfectly integrates hardware based on two-dimensional MEMS scanning technology and software based on artificial intelligence technology, fully demonstrating the leading level of RoboSense’s core technologies in the areas of chips, hardware, and software.
RoboSense’s RS-Fusion-P6 solution is designed to be flexible and scalable, making it suitable for a wide range of autonomous driving applications. It can be customized to meet the specific needs of different vehicle platforms and applications, providing a high level of performance and accuracy for all types of autonomous driving scenarios.
The P6 offers high-performance perception capabilities for full-scene environments from start to finish, making it ideal for a range of driving scenarios, including city streets, highways, and everything in between. Equipped with the four M-series solid-state LiDARs, the P6 offers dynamic switching and high-resolution long-distance detection capabilities, enabling intelligent perception over a 360-degree horizontal range, and allowing it to detect traffic conditions up to 200 meters away. The P6 can quickly process this data and provide feedback to the autonomous driving control center, allowing the vehicle to react in milliseconds to any changes in the driving environment.
P6 is equipped with RoboSense self-developed real-time point cloud perception software Perception. Under the intelligent processing of perception, P6 will be able to accurately process complex traffic environment information. Even in challenging driving scenarios, such as mixed traffic and inclement weather conditions, the P6 can accurately identify pedestrians, electric vehicles, cars, trucks, and other obstacles while tracking their speed, acceleration, and location. With this precise environmental perception data, autonomous vehicles equipped with the P6 can make accurate judgments and perform corresponding actions in real-time.
The launch of the P6 demonstrates RoboSense’s deep understanding of the pain points in the autonomous driving industry. As the automotive industry continues to rapidly evolve, the P6 provides a reliable and high-performance perception solution that can help to accelerate the adoption of autonomous driving technology. With the P6, RoboSense further expands its product portfolio, which includes mechanical and solid-state LiDAR sensors, perception software, and integrated sensing solutions.
With its advanced perception capabilities and robust product portfolio, RoboSense is well-positioned to help accelerate the adoption of autonomous driving technology across a range of industries, including transportation, logistics, and mobility.
Arbe Sampled
Arbe Robotics Ltd. (Nasdaq: ARBE) (“Arbe”), a global leader in Perception Radar Solutions,announced that it has obtained the Japanese Telecommunication and Radio certification for radar samples based on its mass production RF chipset. With the certification process finalized, a leading Japanese automotive company has begun a sensor fusion solution development project based on the Arbe perception radar chipset, while Arbe also conducts pilot programs with leading OEMs and Tier-1s in the Japanese market, one of the top automotive markets in the world.
The automotive industry in Japan is known for its high standards and regulations and puts all automotive and telecommunications technologies through a rigorous certification process prior to commercial evaluation in the region. Arbe’s chipset and flexible software-defined solution were adapted according to the local regulations and desired specifications, demonstrating the scalability and flexibility of the platform.
“Successfully obtaining licensing in Japan is a testament to the maturity of our solution,” says Kobi Marenko, CEO of Arbe. “Japan is known as one of the top automotive markets in the world and serves as the home to major automotive manufacturers, offering tremendous business opportunities. We believe that our radar solutions will help accelerate the market by providing safety and reliability for ADAS and autonomous vehicles in the region.”
Arbe’s Perception Radar has revolutionized automotive radar technology by enhancing radar functionality significantly beyond what was previously possible. Supported by 2,304 virtual RF channels, we believe that Arbe’s Perception Radar delivers the best image quality on the market based on ultra-high resolution at long range sensing. Arbe’s solution provides unmatched safety by eliminating the common causes of autonomous technology-related road collisions with capabilities like stationary object detection and false alarm elimination while protecting vulnerable road users. Arbe’s emergence in the Japanese market will drive advanced safety for ADAS and autonomous vehicles in the region.