XPeng Motors‘ new XPeng P5 smart electric vehicle is equipped with automotive-grade lidar technology. The P5 has “navigation guided pilot” (NGP) capabilities, which will be on China’s city roads for the first time in a production vehicle, powered by XPeng’s full-stack in-house developed autonomous driving system XPILOT 3.5.
The XPILOT 3.5 autonomous driving system has a high-precision positioning unit (GNSS + inertial measurement unit, or IMU) along with 32 perception sensors — two lidar units, 12 ultrasonic sensors, five millimeter-wave radars and 13 high-resolution cameras. The sensors are fused into a 360° dual-perception system to provide sufficient redundancy to handle challenging and complex road conditions.
The double-prism lidar units are able to distinguish pedestrians, cyclists and scooters, static obstacles, and road work, in challenging scenarios such as night and low-light conditions, backlighting and alternating light-and-dark illumination in tunnels.
Extending the NGP function from highways to city diving, the P5 will be able to handle situations such as other autos cutting in, automatic follow and speed-limit optimization on urban roads, recognizing traffic lights as well as small objects.
The P5’s Xmart OS 3.0 in-car operation system supports all-voice interaction. It uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SA8155P auto-grade computing platform to ensure seamless user control and interaction. The instrument console includes a 15.6-inch screen with essential information and controls where the driver needs them. Xmart OS 3.0 also allows vehicle-to-home connection.
The P5 will be featured at Auto Shanghai 2021 on April 19.
A new start-up has introduced an autonomous lawn mower to bring intelligence, automation and sustainable solutions to commercial landscaping. The first autonomous lawn mower by Graze is set to hit the market this year.
The electric lawn mower is designed to increase efficiency and maintenance speed for mid- to large-sized commercial lawns, enhance cutting blades to perfect trim precision, add new sensor capabilities to increase safety, and improve GPS-based mapping and computer vision while optimizing intelligent and applicable insights through advanced machine-learning capabilities.
Analyst reports have found landscaping services in the U.S. generated $101.7 billion in revenue in 2020, while commercial landscaping services (maintenance and general services) have been projected to range between 40 and 60 percent of the overall landscaping service industry in the U.S. Yet, despite the major opportunity to capitalize on an approximate $53B market, commercial lawn mowing has remained an undisrupted industry. Small margins, labor limitations and increasing scrutiny on environmental impact has been met with a lack of impactful solutions.
Graze’s initial prototype attracted investors from major operators as well as individuals on crowdfunding platform SeedInvest.
“We are living in new era of artificial intelligence that stands to transform age-old industries,” said John Vlay, Graze Mowing CEO. “Robotics and automation open up a world of efficiency, and when you apply intelligence, traditional models can be completely reimagined. I’ve been in commercial landscaping for more than 35 years, and can confidently say we built a lawn mower that will bring a new level of quality and safety to the market, and we are doing it sustainably. We are excited to unveil the future of commercial lawn-mowing with our new Graze commercial mower.”
The new model optimizes features and incorporates in-the-field feedback. It has a longer battery life. It can consistently learn and apply data via an intuitive user experience, improving lawn care and creating new optimization opportunities for fleet operators.
Machine learning, coupled with computer vision and a robust system of sensors, allows the new Graze commercial mower to map job sites, plan and execute mowing paths, and avoid obstacles and dangerous inclines while continuously collecting and apply data to further improve aesthetic quality and efficiency.
Powered completely by electric and solar panel technology, the new model allows operators to maximize revenue by deploying mowers during evening hours. Fuel costs are drastically cut, as are carbon emissions. Current fleet operators manage 500 to 1,000 mowers.
Graze is backed by lead investor Wavemaker Partners, a global venture capital fund with $400 million in assets under management including Wavemaker Labs, a robotics and automation focused venture studio.
Keolis Canada and Montreal suburb City of Candiac have launched a long-term demonstration project of an autonomous electric shuttle on public roads in Canada. The shuttle will complement the public transit services currently available in Candiac.
The pilot project will take place over a period of 12 months, with about eight months dedicated to serving citizens.
This initiative was made possible through the financial support and expertise of the Quebec government and the collaboration of Propulsion Québec, the Cluster for Electric and Smart Vehicles and the Technopôle IVÉO.
Screenshot from Keolis Canada video.
The NAVYA autonomous shuttle will operate along a two-kilometer route between the park-and-ride lot and exo’s bus terminal and the intersection of Marie-Victorin and Montcalm North boulevards with several stops along the way, including City Hall, a retirement complex and local businesses.
The autonomous shuttle, which will coexist with regular traffic, will allow employees in the area to reach their workplaces from the bus terminal.
Along the route, the shuttle will go through a railway crossing and an intersection where it will communicate with four traffic lights. During the winter period, a research and development project, without passengers on board, will test how the autonomous electric shuttle adapts to Quebec winter conditions.
“This initiative is exciting because it’s the first pilot project in Canada, and the way it’s carried out will set the course for the next one,” said Marie Hélène Cloutier, vice president, Passenger Experience, Marketing & Sales for Keolis Canada. “For Keolis Canada, multimodal service is the key to the future of transportation. Autonomous electric shuttles are a great example of this because they complement existing services. The enthusiasm for this project has surpassed our expectations, which is very promising for the future.”
“We are extremely proud to be enabling Candiac residents to participate in this historic achievement,” said Normand Dyotte, mayor of Candiac. “It’s an outstanding opportunity for our citizens to be able to travel aboard the first-ever electric autonomous shuttle on a public road in Canada. We invite all public transit users and anyone who is curious or interested to come and try it now.”
Qualcomm Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announced several automotive agreements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018, at North Hall Booth 5616. The show took place Jan. 9-12 in Las Vegas.
As the automotive industry advances toward 5G, highly advanced connectivity solutions are needed to support road safety, mission critical applications, as well as advanced capabilities, such as autonomy.
With the Qualcomm Snapdragon automotive platform’s integrated GNSS and automotive dead reckoning, future vehicles are expected to have the increased capability to effectively be aware of its surroundings.
2017 Jaguar Land Rover. (Photo: Jaguar)
Jaguar Land Rover.Jaguar will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon automotive platform in the Land Rover to power highly advanced telematics, infotainment and digital cluster with integrated connectivity and rear-seat entertainment. The platform will help meet the demand for rich, immersive and seamless connected in-vehicle experiences in future Jaguar Land Rover vehicles.
For telematics units, Jaguar Land Rover will use the Snapdragon 820Am automotive platform to provide customers with ultra-quick and efficient connectivity throughout the vehicle by integrating 4G LTE Advanced, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies.
As Qualcomm Technologies’ most advanced automotive solution, the Snapdragon 820Am Automotive platform features a custom-built 64-bit Qualcomm Kryo CPU, custom-built Qualcomm Adreno 530 GPU for virtualization advantages, and Qualcomm Hexagon 680 DSP Vector eXtension to stream high-definition videos seamlessly onto multiple displays.
It also features the Snapdragon X12 LTE modem to support Category 12 speeds up to 600 Mbps download, as well as vehicle sensor integration and computer vision to support driver assistance using the Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine.
2018 Honda Accord.The 2018 Honda Accord features the Snapdragon Automotive Platform to power applications for its in-vehicle infotainment and navigation system. The 2018 Honda Accord also features a Qualcomm 4G LTE modem designed to support the Hondalink vehicle connectivity system.
BYD Electric Vehicles. Chinese new energy company BYD Company Ltd. also selected Qualcomm Technologies’ automotive solutions for its upcoming electric vehicles. Anticipated to begin in 2019, BYD electric vehicles will feature integrated infotainment and digital cluster systems powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820A Automotive platform.
The software architecture, hypervisor support and integration capability of the 820A supports BYD’s efforts to integrate its infotainment and digital cluster systems into a single electronic control unit (ECU). This is designed to deliver significant optimization and integration benefits compared to previous architectures, which used several different ECUs within the vehicle.
Qualcomm Technologies’ automotive solutions help improve power efficiency within the integrated ECU, which aids in enhancing the vehicle overall performance, battery life and driving range. The use of Qualcomm Technologies’ integrated infotainment and cluster system with Snapdragon 820A Automotive platform is designed to support a unified user interface, improvement in contextual awareness, and a rich in-vehicle user experience with multimedia.
Visteon Cockpit.Visteon Corporation plans to deliver the next-generation of its SmartCore cockpit controllers using automotive solutions from Qualcomm.
Future SmartCore cockpit controllers will feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820A Automotive platform to support automakers’ demand for highly advanced virtual cockpit controllers, which Visteon will design to support autonomous driving technology and applications.
Visteon’s SmartCore domain controller, which can independently operate several cockpit domains on one system-on-a-chip (SoC) through a single driver interface, will be the first platform-based domain controller to incorporate the Snapdragon 820A Automotive platform.
Using Snapdragon automotive solutions from Qualcomm Technologies, Visteon aims to make available technologies to support advanced virtual cockpits and autonomous driving through Visteon’s scalable hardware and software stack in SmartCore and its DriveCore autonomous driving controller.
DriveCore is an open platform consisting of the hardware, middleware and frameworks to develop machine learning algorithms for object classification, detection, path planning and execution.
Visteon is scheduled to launch the first SmartCore-based solution in 2018 on a high-volume, global vehicle platform with a European automaker.
