It takes Amnon Shashua 20 minutes in city traffic to get to his Jerusalem office each morning–not a terrible commute, especially since his #Audi A7 handles most of the chore. “I let go of the wheel and let the car drive,” says Shashua, 56. “It’s really fun.” Fun, but not entirely worry-free. “I have to be alert,” he adds.
As cofounder, along with Ziv Aviram, 57, of #Mobileye, a leading provider of assisted-driving software, Shashua knows better than anyone that autonomous cars still need work. At highway speeds, under certain conditions, hands-free driving is already doable, as #Tesla Motors has shown with its Autopilot system, which, like others from Audi and #Cadillac, relies on Mobileye’s camera-based software. Where it gets dicey is in complex situations that arise on city streets, like merging into a roundabout. Artificial intelligence, which is moving faster than anyone in the auto industry expected, is helping with those situations. But it’s still likely to be another decade before cars are smart enough to drive themselves at all times without any human input.
Mobileye, two years after its $890 million IPO, has a clever plan to speed things along–one that’s quite different from that of Alphabet, the parent company of Google and Mobileye’s biggest rival in the race toward a self-driving future. Mobileye EyeQ software chips are used by more than 90% of the world’s automakers, helping cars stay in their lanes and brake in emergencies. Now, working with three of the biggest carmakers, the company is rolling out new high-definition mapping technology that will use those chips to gather crowdsourced, real-time data from vehicles and pinpoint a car’s location in relation to traffic signs, lane markers and other objects. Together with cameras and other sensors like radar, the continually updated maps will provide an additional source of information that should help Mobileye spread automated driving features to more cars more quickly.
No comments:
Post a Comment