On October 25th, Uber's self-driving truck company Otto announced the completion of the world's first self-driving commercial freight service and released a live video of the road. The card carries 51744 cans of Budweiser beer, starting from Fort Collins, Colorado, passing through downtown Denver, and finally arriving in Colorado Springs for a full 120 miles (about 193 km).
James Sembrot, head of Budweiser, said that citizens of Colorado Springs would see the label on the beer can when they were drinking beer from a self-driving truck, "first delivered by self-driving truck."
The self-driving truck was converted from an 18-wheel semi-mounted Volvo truck equipped with two cameras for detecting road conditions, a lidar for generating a 3D modeling environment, and two for detecting obstacles. Infrared radar for vehicles, a GPS sensor for vehicle tracking. All of these devices add up to more than $30,000.
Otto was founded in early 2016, and the start-up team is a former executive of Google's parent company Alphabet and some of Apple's and Tesla's former employees. They launched the prototype of the first self-driving truck in May. It was acquired by Uber for $680 million in August this year, when TK said that the combination of Otto and Uber would make them one of the world's top autopilot R&D teams. But he also stressed that Otto will remain independent and Uber will not participate in Otto's logistics program.
Speaking of the development of autonomous vehicles, multi-sensor information fusion technology, vehicle positioning technology and vehicle control technology play a vital role in the ultimate realization of unmanned driving.
1. The basic principle of multi-sensor information fusion technology is similar to the process of human brain comprehensive processing of various information. This technology can analyze, integrate and transmit all the information collected by the automobile operating system to the automobile operating system. As of December 17, 2015, in the field of multi-sensor information fusion technology, 505 patent applications were filed by global applicants. The main applicants were Bosch, Daimler, Toyota, etc., which submitted 36 and 25 respectively. 23 patent applications.
2. Vehicle positioning technology, which can transmit road information to the vehicle operating system, such as obstacle position, driving direction, highway exit, and the like. As of December 17, 2015, in the field of vehicle positioning technology, global applicants submitted a total of 1,614 patent applications, the main applicants are Toyota, Google, General Electric, Bosch, Daimler, etc., respectively, submitted 57, 50, 36, 36, 35 patent applications.
3, vehicle control technology can help the vehicle to achieve speed control and direction control, enabling the vehicle to automatically complete a series of operations such as deceleration, lane change, steering, overtaking. As of December 17, 2015, in the field of vehicle control technology, global applicants submitted a total of 1,114 patent applications, the main applicants are Daimler, Google, Toyota, General Electric, Ford, etc., respectively, submitted 47, 47, 43, 42 and 37 patent applications.
From the point of view of the number of patent applications mentioned above, international car companies and component companies have already occupied a commanding height in related technologies. But we also saw from the California Vehicle Authority's April auto-driving public road test license publicity page that there are also outstanding unmanned startups.
California Vehicle Authority's Automated Driving Vehicle Public Road Test License Publicity Page
In total, only 13 companies have obtained this license, most of which are bright names, such as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Google, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Honda, Ford, Bosch, Delphi (the world's largest car zero) One of the component manufacturing companies, there are three startups: Cruise AutomaTIon, which was just acquired by GM for $1 billion, Zoox, which plans to build a robot taxi, and the mysterious Drive.ai, which also proves these The technical strength of the startup company, after all, the Vehicle Authority will not let the unreliable autonomous vehicles take the road and threaten other vehicles and pedestrians.
1, Cruise AutomaTIon: GM paid more than $1 billion to acquire
In March of this year, General Motors, the world's largest automaker, announced the acquisition of Cruise AutomaTIon, a small start-up for driverless technology in San Francisco, for $1 billion. The transaction is currently awaiting regulatory approval. Neither GM nor Cruise disclosed any transaction details.
Fortune quoted insiders as saying that GM paid the price of more than $1 billion in cash + stock, up to ten times the value of Cruise. Re/code also confirmed the purchase price in the report.
GM is just one of the investors in Cruise – the small company’s A round of financing totals $20 million. The company is a start-up supported by Y Combinator, a well-known American startup incubator. They launched the "Cruise RP-1" product in 2014, which is essentially a "post-installed ADAS product", which is only applicable to the Audi A4/S4 model, which was priced at $10,000.
According to General Motors president Dan Ammann, they acquired Cruise because they were impressed by their rapid development. The company previously developed semi-automatic conversion-related components for the car, and now develops the car into a technology that can be driven automatically on the highway. This is different from the driverless car developed by Google.
GM hopes to integrate driverless technology into the shared rides previously invested. Previously, the automaker spent $500 million on the taxi application Lyft. In January of this year, General Motors announced the acquisition of the technology and assets of the shared car service Sidecar.
2. Autopilot company Zoox: valuation is over 1 billion, planned to raise 250 million US dollars
On May 28th, according to foreign media reports, the US driverless car startup Zoox plans to raise $252 million, and the valuation will exceed $1 billion. Previously, the California State Motor Vehicle Administration had revealed that Zoox submitted an auto-driving car test drive application on March 16, 2016, and was approved on the 22nd. Zoox became the 12th company to receive the California Autopilot car test drive privilege.
Zoox has been on the mysterious route. Its concept model was unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November 2015. It is a vehicle with no four passengers sitting face to face and no special driver's electric car. According to IEEE Spectrum magazine, Zoox is seeking to develop a driverless car for a similar taxi service to Uber, with plans to achieve a fully automated taxi ride on the road by 2020.
Zoox was hosted by Australian designer TIm Kentley-Klay and Jesse Levinson, who worked at Stanford University with Google's unmanned car project founder Sebastian Thrun. Dan Cooperman, former general counsel of Apple and Oracle, and Qualcomm Labs, former president of Qualcomm, joined. The Zoox company.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Zoox now has 140 employees. In this financing, AID Partners Capital Holdings Ltd. has invested $20 million.
3. Drive.ai: Completed 12 million US dollars of angel round financing
Drive.ai, a startup for a driverless car in Silicon Valley, has also been licensed to allow drones to be measured on California roads. Drive.ai is the 13th company to get the license for a driverless car. Founded in 2015, Drive.ai is an artificial intelligence technology company founded by students from the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab.
With more than 20 members, Drive.ai focuses on deep learning technology to provide affordable autopilot solutions for cars. Co-founder and president is Carol Reiley, completed in March 2016. 12 million dollars in angel round financing.
(Rily’s other identity is Wu Enda’s wife, and she’s and Wu Enda’s “Robot Engagement Photo†has been widely circulated)
Although not willing to disclose specific technical details, Riley told us that Drive.ai and Google's unmanned vehicles, Tesla, etc. are completely different:
Drive.ai focuses on the 'brains' of cars, mainly using deep learning techniques to create automated driving artificial intelligence systems, allowing computers to train themselves and make the right decisions, rather than trying to write all the practices in advance in the computer. .
The road surface condition is dynamic and has infinite possibilities (compared to the fact that the number of steps in Go is still limited, which is why artificial intelligence can play Go, but can't drive), developers can't list all situations. Set all practices in advance, so it is more effective to let the machine get training like a human being and learn by yourself.
In addition to allowing computers to make more accurate decisions on their own, another advantage of Drive.ai is low cost. It is developing software that can control a car with a low-cost small computer, and can use the existing sensors on the car to make the sensor smarter, rather than expensive and expensive like Google’s unmanned car. Large computer systems, coupled with expensive radar and laser sensors.
After obtaining the license, Drive.ai will soon have a series of on-board tests equipped with autonomous driving technology, including data collection vehicles and autonomous vehicles, and they are also planning to attract more engineers to join.
4, NuTonomy: A car financing company A round of financing 16 million US dollars
Also interested in unmanned taxis is NuTonomy, although it has not yet appeared on the California Vehicle Authority's auto-driving public road test license publicity page. Morning news on May 31, NuTonomy, a spin-off car software startup from MIT, just got a $16 million Series A financing, and they hope to use the funds to release driverless rentals in Singapore before 2018. car.
This round of financing was led by Highland Capital. Existing shareholders such as venture capital firms Fontinalis Partners and Signal Vetures, which was founded by Ford executive chairman Bill Ford, also participated in the follow-up. EDBI and Samsung Capital, the investment departments of the Singapore Economic Development Board, have also joined the current round of financing.
According to people familiar with the matter, the valuation of NuTomony's current round of financing is about $100 million. Cruise Automation, a driverless car company acquired by General Motors earlier this year, is also valued at $100 million.
NuTomony announced in January that it had received $3.6 million in seed round financing. As the development of driverless cars accelerated, the company quickly began to seek a second round of financing. The company's CEO and co-founder Karl Iagnemma said they hope to take a few steps ahead of potential competitors.
NuTonomy has begun testing the company's driverless software on the public roads in Singapore using the modified Mitsubishi iMiev and Renault Zoe. Engineers are also creating applications that will ultimately be available to users, allowing them to use unmanned taxi services. At the same time, the company is developing cloud computing software for deploying and directing unmanned taxis.
The main task of NuTonomy is to deploy an unmanned taxi team. But the company is also working with large automakers and suppliers to help these companies develop unmanned features. NuTonomy is currently testing driverless car technology with automotive partners in the UK and the US. Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA has become an important driverless car test base with a 23-hectare mini-city called MCity. Researchers and car manufacturers can test car driverless technology locally to understand how these technologies are used in real life.
Since NuTonomy wants to select suppliers for its unmanned taxi fleet, the current relationship is expected to translate into more formal cooperation. The startup is not prepared to produce any cars or sensors on its own.
USB4 Series Cable,USB 4 Cable,USB 4.0 Harness,USB Cable 4.0
Dong guan Sum Wai Electronic Co,. Ltd. , https://www.sw-cables.com