Seoul Robotics has launched Voyage, a plug-and-play lidar perception system. The all-in-one deployment kit is equipped with the company’s proprietary software SENSR2, lidar sensors and a computer.
Seoul Robotics is a 3D computer vision company using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for intelligent robotic perception systems. The company’s sensor-agnostic perception software is deployed by BMW, Mercedes-Benz, the Chattanooga Department of Transportation and Emart, among others.
Seoul Robotics provides companies, institutions and governments with the software behind the sensor that enables its use in markets such as retail, smart cities and security. Voyage is designed to help organizations and communities increase efficiencies and improve safety through a cost-effective, customizable system.
The lidar market, which is on track to reach more than $3 billion by 2025, has become crowded over the past several years as the technology became synonymous with autonomous vehicles. The marketplace is flooded with companies producing sensors to fuel the demand of this industry, but most sensors on the market are sold without any intelligence, leaving companies to develop software in-house, which significantly increases the time and cost of deployment.
With Voyage, organizations are not obligated to purchase a particular sensor if it is not a fit for the solution they are deploying. Customers don’t have to worry about changing software when they change or upgrade their sensors — Voyage is a non-proprietary solution that breaks down the barriers to entry and allows for quick access to 3D vision, according to Seoul Robotics.
“First and foremost, lidar sensors do not work without sophisticated perception software. The lidar industry is investing billions of dollars on sensors without even considering the software needed to interpret the data into actionable solutions,” said HanBin Lee, CEO of Seoul Robotics. “Voyage combines analytics and sensors to bring tangible solutions to market much faster.”
Voyage provides highly accurate object detection, tracking and classification capabilities to enable a wide range of applications for smart cities, intelligent transportation systems, retail analytics, crowd monitoring and security. It fuses three cutting-edge technologies:
3D lidar sensing powered by Seoul Robotics’ proprietary software SENSR2
Edge computing for minimum data burden and ease of integration
Built-in sophisticated perception software for instantaneous analytics
Voyage provides centimeter-accurate 3D object detection, tracking, and classification in addition to volumetric profiling and motion prediction capabilities, regardless of lighting conditions, and can collect and process data from up to four sensors for seamless insights across the sensor coverage zones. As Voyage does not capture, show or store any biometric and otherwise identifying data, it aims to maximize the protection of people’s privacy when installed as part of various smart cities and security systems.
The TomTom autonomous test vehicle. (Photo: TomTom)
To grab a larger piece of the burgeoning connected and autonomous vehicle markets, digital mapmaker TomTom launched its self-driving test vehicle and is integrating navigation and diagnostic capabilities in the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform.
While the company has tested the technology for years, TomTom officially announced the availability of its own autonomous test vehicle, which Arnold Meijer, TomTom strategic manager, business development, said is a critical advantage to quickly develop maps and services for that industry.
“We can continuously test our mapping technology on the roads, get insights and high-quality data on how it performs in a multitude of circumstances and, right away, feed this into our AI-driven mapmaking process,” he said.
Currently, the vehicle is testing TomTom’s high-definition map; a crowd-sourced map update called Roadagrams; and a map-streaming service, AutoStream, which will deliver map data to vehicles on demand.
The company announced in September at the International Motor Show (IAA 2019) in Frankfurt, Germany, that its digital maps have doubled to more than 1 million Level 1 and Level 2 autonomous vehicles from several automakers.
Showcasing TomTom HD Maps
At IAA 2019, TomTom also demonstrated proof-of-concept high-definition map features that can work through Microsoft Azure cloud services, Meijer said. “Some of the navigation intelligence, which also includes traffic information and HD map services, can also be used in vehicles for navigation apps, as well as context while driving autonomously,” he said.
The demonstration allows TomTom to send telemetry data to Microsoft Azure. “[This includes] application usage data such as what menu items the end-user clicked on and what screens of the TomTom NavApp they opened for app analytics purposes,” he said.
Other features include GPS location during a driving simulation, vehicle speed and heading for driver behavior, and usage of apps that are not navigation-related, such as for music. Other testing included road speed limit, the number of times users drive a planned route, destination details planned by a user, and travel time.
TomTom navigation integrated into the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform allows automakers to quickly access precise navigation and driving behavior, “while of course adhering to TomTom’s privacy principles,” Meijer said. “This data could, for instance, be used to predict the range of an electric vehicle based on driving behavior and planned route more accurately. Or to work out, based on navigation behavior, what connectivity package for online navigation would be best suited for a driver.”
The TomTom Moma test vehicle prototype hits the road in San Francisco. (Photo: Kevin Dennehy)
Voyage Forges Ahead…
While recent press reports have said autonomous vehicle development is slowing because of technology limitations and consumer doubt, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Voyage has raised millions of dollars and continues to test self-driving cars in retirement communities in California and Florida.
The company recently raised $31 million in Series B funding from Franklin Templeton, Khosla Ventures, Jaguar Land-Rover’s InMotion Ventures and Chevron Technology Ventures. Voyage has raised a total of $52 million since its 2017 founding, said Oliver Cameron, company co-founder and CEO.
With the new funding, Cameron said the company hopes to triple its workforce, increase its second-generation fleet of self-driving cars, invest more in the technology and roll out a third-generation vehicle.
“We are taking a unique, focused approach to delivering truly driverless cars in communities where there are limited mobility options, customers who need an autonomous ride-hailing service, and lower speeds,” he said. “Many residents within our communities don’t have access to transportation options that work for them, so they’ve welcomed our fleet of self-driving vehicles. We’ve started with self-driving cars that can travel point-to-point within our communities at speeds of up to 25 mph.”
Cameron said the community-based approach allows the company to quickly design and deploy autonomous technology. “For the past two years, because we are taking this focused, community-based approach to designing and deploying advanced self-driving car technology, progress has been rapid. Our vehicles intelligently and autonomously navigate the complex neighborhoods of our communities and safely transport our passengers door-to-door,” he said.
The company said its engineers are transitioning software to a safety-critical middleware, shipping a new prediction engine with better capabilities and creating triple redundancy in the vehicle’s perception system.
G3 Vehicle? Not Yet. Voyage, which began testing self-driving with a retrofitted Ford Fusion, doesn’t have a timetable planned for a third-generation system, Cameron said. Instead, the company plans to continue to use the self-driving Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivan in its testing projects.
“Before we launch our [third generation] self-driving car, we are going to build and scale more G2 self-driving cars to better serve the communities in which we operate. We haven’t announced a timeframe for the launch of our electric, truly driverless and highly scalable G3 self-driving car,” he said.
The company is growing its ranks as it has hired its first chief operations officer, Nina Qi. She believes the biggest hurdle autonomous vehicles have is the basic challenge to deliver safe and cost-effective services to make the industry economically sustainable.
Two companies have integrated GPS/PNT tech into a growing autonomous vehicle market: driverless shuttles for retirement communities. Powering the service, a cloud-based GNSS corrections system delivers centimeter-level accuracy without deploying and maintaining a GNSS network. This leading-edge application targets autonomy at scale and enables high-precision positioning for mass-market automotive and autonomous vehicle applications.
Photo: Voyage
For many seniors, retirement communities offer the best of both worlds: the freedom to live in their own homes and access to immediate assistance when they need it.
Driverless cars are an option several retirement communities have embraced to better serve residents who no longer have the ability or desire to drive, but want to retain the ability to come and go as they please.
“Autonomous vehicles are a great fit for any community where the environment is well-understood, less complex than dense urban areas, and the transportation demand is high,” said Justin Erlich, vice president of strategy, policy and legal for Palo Alto, California-based Voyage, a company that employs existing technology to develop fleets of autonomous vehicles. “Retirement communities satisfy all of these characteristics.”
Serving Seniors
Voyage deployed driverless shuttles to serve 130,000 retirees at The Villages, a massive retirement community encompassing more than 50 square miles in Sumter County, Florida.
“The community’s residents enjoy an extremely active lifestyle, but often face challenges getting around,” Erlich said. “Autonomous vehicles are perfectly suited to meet this demand.”
The six vehicles in the fleet stay within the confines of the retirement community, where all roads have been precisely mapped, speed limits are lower and traffic patterns are more clearly defined than in a typical city. The vehicles travel over a network of roads that span 750 miles.
THE VILLAGES
Location: Sumter County, Florida Area: 50 square miles Road span: 750 miles Number of retiree residents: More than 130,000 Number of Voyage autonomous vehicles: 6
To request one of Voyage’s autonomous vehicles, a resident can summon the shuttle on-demand with a smartphone. Voyage is working with residents on the possibility of using other shuttle-request options, including text messages, phone calls and well-marked pickup zones in crowded downtown areas, Erlich said.
All passengers ride with Voyage safety drivers in the front seat. The drivers take note of any “events” during rides so Voyage can investigate how to improve the riding experience.
Photo: Voyage
Eventually, residents will be the only passengers in the vehicles. If they need assistance during a ride, they will be able to communicate with remotely located Voyage employees, Erlich said.
Testing and rolling out fleets of driverless vehicles in private communities like The Villages allows Voyage to develop and perfect the autonomous vehicle technology it uses. As a result, the company can deliver the service to new clients in mere months.
Voyage, which has been working on its autonomous technology for more than two years, uses daily customer feedback to constantly adjust to its technologies to better serve riders.
“Feedback collected during test drives is one of the biggest factors in shaping our technology roadmap,” Erlich said. “Driving data — collected across all sensors and traffic scenarios — is automatically processed each night, highlighting interesting ‘events’ for our engineering team to analyze and review.”
During Voyage’s beta test process at The Villages, residents applied to be part of the company’s Pioneer Program for early access to the autonomous vehicles and the ability to offer feedback early on. Riders who test the service complete scorecards after each trip to help improve the experience for all riders.
Europe Takes the Lead
(Tire photo: iStock.com / TANAPHONG)
Autonomous vehicle technology is taking off in Europe, shows a study published by the European Patent Office and conducted with the European Council for Automotive Research & Development. From 2011 to 2017, European patent applications related to automated driving increased 20 times faster than other technologies in recent years. The “Patents and self-driving vehicles” study reveals automated driving patent applications at the European Patent Office rose 330%, compared with 16% for all technologies during the same time.
“As one of the only self-driving car companies that are picking up actual passengers as a part of our Pioneer Program, we believe we can learn a lot from the feedback we hear from our initial Pioneer riders as we try to make this the best service for The Villages,” said Oliver Cameron, co-founder and CEO of Voyage. “We are excited to see so much interest from other residents to become a part of this program.”
When developing autonomous technology, safety is Voyage’s top priority, Erlich said. Every change to the hardware and software used undergoes a multi-stage validation process. Company engineers perform “on-desk” tests of every change using unit tests, functional tests and a driving simulation environment. Then, an operations team runs suites of real-world traffic and validation tests in a completely controlled environment at a closed-course testing facility in San Jose, California
“Voyage makes extensive use of simulation testing and closed-course validation before any of our vehicles are driven in our partner communities,” Erlich said. “All changes must pass these closed-course tests before making their way onto the roads of our partner communities.”
Vehicle design also ensures riders stay safe. “Our fleet vehicles have been designed with multiple levels of safety redundancies for braking, steering and power, and leverage an advanced diagnostics system to automatically detect anomalies and safely stop the vehicle,” he explained. “In addition, we have developed a remote teleoperations solution that allows the vehicle to request additional help when a driver is not physically in the vehicle.”
Skylark provides high-precision localization. (Image: Swift Navigation)
Making Autonomous Work
When building an autonomous system, localization — knowing exactly where you are in the world — is critical. Erlich said it’s often difficult to estimate your position within an accuracy of several feet when using more traditional GPS solutions.
“For autonomous driving, you need to be able to estimate within several centimeters,” he added.
Voyage uses Swift Navigation’s GNSS receivers and Skylark network as one of the primary inputs into its localization solution.
Swift Navigation is a San Francisco-based tech firm that develops GPS technology to power autonomous vehicles. It is working to extend the Skylark network across the contiguous United States, and then plans to expand globally.
“Coupled with high-definition maps, odometry sensors and other inputs, we’ve been able to use Swift Navigation’s differential GPS solution to achieve the localization results we needed to deliver a true autonomous driving service,” Erlich said.
Voyage’s autonomous vehicles are equipped with a suite of sensors on their roof racks that includes the Swift Navigation Piksi Multi GNSS receiver, lidar devices, cameras, radar and an inertial measurement unit. They create and constantly update a 3D map of the vehicle’s surroundings.
Swift Navigation’s Duro is one of two GNSS receivers Voyage uses for its autonomous vehicles. (Photo: Swift Navigation)
A computer in the trunk integrates all sensor signals and uses the vehicle’s Controller Area Network (CAN) bus to operate steering, braking and other functions.
Skylark, Swift Navigation’s cloud-based GNSS corrections service, provides Voyage’s autonomous vehicles with precise positioning to eliminate the complexity of deploying and maintaining GNSS networks.
Skylark offers a plug-and-play experience that delivers convergence times measured in seconds. Its positioning algorithms provide a continuous data stream to individual devices from the cloud. This data stream allows for quick positioning and high reliability and availability.
The correction service enables receivers to connect to a constantly adapting, cloud-based model to obtain GNSS observations. Dependence on base stations in each area of deployment is eliminated, increasing the geographic area in which they can travel. Skylark works seamlessly with both of Swift Navigation’s GNSS receivers — Piksi Multi and Duro.
In addition to Piksi Multi and Duro, Voyage uses third-party receivers and microprocessors that benefit from the lane-level positioning Skylark delivers.
Equipment Specs
Photo: Swift Navigation
GNSS receiver one. Swift Navigation — Piksi Multi
• Dual-frequency and multi-constellation
• Up to 20-Hz solution rates
• Raw data outputs from on-board MEMS IMU GNSS receiver two. Swift Navigation — Duro
• IP67 rated
• Centimeter-level positioning
• Raw data outputs from on-board MEMS IMU Lidar devices. Velodyne — VLS-128
• 128 channels
• Up to 300-meter range
• Up to 360-degree surround view Cameras. iDS — Global-Shutter units Proximity sensors. Chrysler OEM Inertial measurement unit. Xsens — MTi-300
• 375-Hz bandwith for accelerometers
• 415-Hz bandwith for gyroscopes Antenna. Swift Navigation — Mini-survey for the Duro RTK unit
• 1 L1/L2 GPS/GLONASS/BeiDou mini-survey
The Swift product suite delivers centimeter-level localization —important to riders who may have mobility issues that require vehicles with smooth starts and stops.
Skylark was built specifically to deliver the speed, security, precision and reliability demanded by automotive manufacturers with autonomous and safety applications architected to support ASIL-rated (Automotive Safety Integrity Level) systems.
Because Skylark is a network, it is fault tolerant. In the unlikely event an individual cloud reference station goes offline, Skylark’s positioning algorithms will continue to provide a continuous stream of corrections.
Once connected, Skylark creates a precise and constantly adapting model of the atmosphere and related errors affecting GNSS. Connected users simply turn on their devices to get the precise positioning data they need.
Safety Drivers
As drivers get older, their mental and physical health can affect their ability to operate vehicles safely. Vision and hearing loss keep many older drivers off the road. Fear of driving at night or in the rain also can be a problem for older drivers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 7,400 adults over the age of 65 died as a result of car accidents in 2016. That same year, more than 290,000 of adults over the age of 65 were treated in emergency departments for injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents.
Residents at The Villages who have used the autonomous vehicles report positive feedback, Erlich said. They consider the service a major improvement to their day-to-day activities because it’s convenient. Plus, they prefer the ability to be more carefree during happy hour, fewer hassles with traffic and parking, and lack of interactions with poor drivers.
Being on the cutting-edge of a generational technology also is a positive for many residents, Erlich said. “Autonomous vehicles create a clear path to safer, more accessible, and reliable transportation for everyone. From a safety perspective, autonomous vehicles have the potential to significantly reduce the more than 37,000 deaths attributed each year to driving. From a lifestyle perspective, there are also huge opportunities: from reclaiming daily commute time, to providing a reliable means of transportation to people with mobility challenges.”
Positioning Intelligence Key to Autonomous
Hexagon’s Positioning Intelligence (PI) division is an integral partner in many autonomous vehicle development projects, providing technologies such as SPAN (GNSS+INS technology), TerraStar-X corrections, and Automated Research and Development Platforms from its brands including NovAtel, VERIPOS and AutonomouStuff.
NovAtel hardware and software products, along with engineering support, address the need for accurate, reliable and robust GNSS positioning. TerraStar-X correction services deliver worldwide coverage and assured positioning with continuous availability, and provide the accuracy and rapid convergence needed to achieve lane-level precision for safe autonomous operation.
For developers of autonomous consumer transportation, integrated research and development automotive platforms from AutonomouStuff accelerate time to market.
Making It Safe. For large-scale automotive production, safety is the main focus. The Hexagon PI software positioning engine and TerraStar-X technology are being developed to ASIL-B (Automotive Safety Integrity Level B) standards to provide precise positioning for lane-level performance in autonomous applications.
Image: Trimble
Road Corrections
Incorporating precise and consistent absolute location information is an essential component of enabling advanced driver assistance (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD) technology for vehicles.
To help meet this need, Trimble recently released Trimble RTX Auto. The Trimble RTX Auto correction service provides a precise point position (PPP) solution that can be used to correct the position of any auto grade GNSS chipset. RTX Auto works in parallel with other on-vehicle sensors to deliver a positioning solution that satisfies ADAS and AD requirements.
Absolute position contributes to many features:
Lane centering. Systems designed to keep a car centered in a lane, relieving the driver of the task of steering, is often achieved with cameras and absolute position data. Absolute position can be used when lines disappear, or weather prevents them from being seen.
Map aiding. a combination of precise map and location data helps to navigate junctions, lane changes, roundabouts or intersections where lane information is essential to safe driving.
Prediction of future road structure. Both allow a vehicle to begin slowing in advance of a bend in the road and to avoid harsh braking that would happen if the system only relied on short range sensors.
Adhering to the speed limit. This helps drivers anticipate changes in speed limits when a downpour prevents cameras from seeing the speed limit signs or when they might be obscured by natural surroundings or another vehicle.
RTX Auto is both Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) and Automotive Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (ASPICE) certified. These certifications validate that Trimble RTX Auto meets functional safety requirements for ADAS and autonomous applications in the auto industry.
Super Cruising. Trimble is on the road today providing RTX-based absolute positioning within General Motors’ Super Cruise driver assistance feature, a hands-free driving system for the freeway. For more information on Super Cruise, visit www.cadillac.com/world-of-cadillac/innovation/super-cruise.
