San Francisco-Bangalore AI partnership
Tata Elxsi, a global design and technology services company, and artificial perception pioneer AEye have announced the successful completion of RoboTaxi.
RoboTaxi is Tata Elxsi’s in-house concept demonstrator vehicle developed using AEye’s iDAR™ platform and Tata Elxsi’s autonomous stack.
iDAR is the first fully software-definable smart sensor that supports dynamic ROI and cueing of sensors, improving the reliability of detection and classification, while extending the range at which objects can be detected, classified and tracked to enhance safe, reliable vehicle autonomy.
Tata Elxsi’s RoboTaxi, built on top of its software middleware platform Autonomai, with deep learning and AI capabilities, was used to conceptualize the RoboTaxi feature, said a Tata release on 2 Jan 2020.
The feature allows the user to travel in a RoboTaxi from their current location to the user’s selected destination with the press of a button on the screen.
The fully autonomous vehicle, fitted with AEye’s iDAR, encounters various scenarios, such as cross-traffic detection at a junction and round-about, follow the road ahead, and cueing the sensor with HD maps and V2X information.
Tata Elxsi is responsible for iDAR integration into the vehicle, interfacing with the AD stack, simulation, vehicle testing and demonstration for AEye.
“Tata Elxsi has been a wonderful development partner, helping us to extend the software capabilities of the iDAR platform and integrate iDAR into a fully realized autonomous driving stack,” said Abhijit Thatte, VP of AI and software at AEye.
“Building a reference autonomous system from the ground up, based on iDAR as the artificial perception platform, is a fantastic achievement for the AEye and Tata Elxsi’s AD/ADAS team. We are excited to be demonstrating some of the unique capabilities of iDAR and how they can accelerate the deployment of autonomous features in vehicles,” said Thatte.
AEye’s system is unique in that it can scale for “Autonomy on-demand” – allowing for any hardware implementation, from low-cost ADAS to fully integrated 360 degree robotaxi functionality. AEye also recently announced the ability to move selective perception capabilities to the edge of the network, onto the sensor itself.
“iDAR is a powerful perception platform, and it has been an exceptional opportunity to work with iDAR and the AEye team to realize our shared vision of how to implement autonomous driving,” said Nitin Pai, Chief Marketing Officer, and Strategy Head of Tata Elxsi.
“We look forward to continuing to work together to deliver exciting new capabilities in 2020,” added Pai.
AEye is an artificial perception pioneer and creator of iDAR™, a perception system that acts as the eyes and visual cortex of autonomous vehicles. Since its demonstration of its solid-state LiDAR™ scanner in 2013, AEye has pioneered breakthroughs in intelligent sensing. The company is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and backed by world-renowned investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Taiwania Capital, Hella Ventures, LG Electronics, Subaru-SBI, Aisin, Intel Capital and Airbus Ventures.
Tata Elxsi is a global design and technology services company, headquartered in Bangalore. It addresses the automotive, broadcast and communications, consumer electronics and healthcare industries. This is supported by a network of design studios, development centres, and offices worldwide. Fiinews.com
