Earlier last month at the CES 2019, world’s leading automotive suppliers – Continental and ZF announced their Level 2+ self-driving solutions based on NVIDIA Drive. The productions for these are expected to start in 2020.
A level 2 of driving automation implies “Hands-off” driving in the vehicles, meaning that the automated system takes complete control of the vehicle for all actions such as accelerating, braking, steering, etc. However, the driver still has to monitor the driving and maybe required to take control if required. NVIDIA’s DRIVE Autopilot integrates multiple breakthrough artificial intelligence technologies, and is the world’s first commercially available Level 2+ automated driving system.
The NVIDIA DRIVE Autopilot provides not only world-class autonomous driving perception, but also a cockpit that is rich in artificial intelligence capabilities. This system enables manufacturers to bring even more sophisticated automated driving features, such as, intelligent cockpit assistance, visualization capabilities, etc. These capabilities are way beyond the current ADAS offerings, especially in terms of performance, functionality and road safety. NVIDIA Drive Autopilot also enables the self-driving vehicles to have the more computational horsepower.
The NVIDIA DRIVE Autopilot integrates the high-performance NVIDIA Xavier System-on-a-Chip (SoC) processors with the latest NVIDIA DRIVE software so that many deep neural networks (DNNs) can be processed to receive better perception and complete surround camera sensor data from outside the vehicle as well as inside the vehicle. This goes on to support self-driving vehicle activities such as highway merge, lane changing, lane splitting, personal mapping, etc. outside the vehicle monitored by the NVIDIA AV, while inside the vehicle, it supports driver monitoring, AI co-pilot capabilities and advanced in-cabin visualization of the vehicle’s computer vision system monitored by NVIDIA IX. The NVIDIA Drive Autopilot also complements the NVIDIA Drive AGX Pegasus system that provides Level 5 capabilities for robotaxis. A Level 5 driving automation is where no human intervention is required at all during the course of driving.
As research progresses and commercial production begins, the gateways to self-driving vehicles are going to open up full scale. Artificial Intelligence could thus play a major role in making our roads safer and our drives more hassle-free. In cases of drivers for whom long-distance hauls are a daily part of their life such as truck drivers and bus drivers, artificial intelligence would be a big boon. These self-driving vehicles will have full capabilities to understand where the other vehicles on the road are, read the lane markings, detect pedestrians and cyclists, differentiate between the lights and their colors, comprehend traffic signs, and even create a specific route for itself at times when maps are not available. What was something we only saw in the popular culture on our TV screens and in movie theatres is soon to be a reality, and artificial intelligence is making it all possible.
Very soon, there would be a time when we could drive in an artificial-intelligence powered self-driving vehicle and go to a restaurant for having dinner. At the restaurant artificial intelligence agents take our order, and robots in the kitchen cook it up. We have food, and pay the money electronically, before driving back home in the self-driving vehicle brought to the gate automatically, so no tipping the valet.
With artificial intelligence finding more and more applications in our lives, helping us be more efficient and better versions of ourselves, there is a burgeoning demand for professionals who are trained and skilled in working with artificial intelligence. Irrespective of whether you are a fresh graduate or a professional with significant years of experience behind them, all of you can ride the artificial intelligence wave. In an industry where it’s hard to get a job without experience, and impossible to score experience without getting a job; having a globally recognized certification from a reputed institute could be the queue-breaker you need.
Now that you know what you have to do next, it’s time to click the link below to reach Cognixia and sign up for the next batch of our comprehensive course in machine learning, artificial intelligence and deep learning! Don’t just dream of owning those self-driving cars, better still, dream of being the team that makes it. Talk to us now!
