Intel claims it is poised to accelerate its autonomous driving business. Mobileye, an Intel Company, will start building a fleet of fully autonomous (level 4 SAE) vehicles for testing in the United States, Israel and Europe. The first vehicles will be deployed later this year, and the fleet will eventually scale to more than 100 automobiles.
Intel’s blog post states that the company wants to enable automakers to deliver driverless cars faster while reducing costs – the data Intel collects will save customers significant costs.
Building these test vehicles, Intel’s new entity will combine proprietary capabilities from Mobileye including computer vision, sensing, fusion, mapping and driving policy along with Intel’s open compute platforms and expertise in data center and 5G communication technologies to deliver a complete “car-to-cloud” system.
The fleet will include multiple car brands and vehicle types to demonstrate the technology’s agnostic nature.
“Building cars and testing them in real-world conditions provides immediate feedback and will accelerate delivery of “Geographic diversity is very important as different regions have very diverse driving styles as well as different road conditions and signage. Our goal is to develop autonomous vehicle technology that can be deployed anywhere, which means we need to test and train the vehicles in varying locations,” said Amnon Shashua, soon-to-be senior vice president of Intel Corporation and future CEO/CTO of Mobileye
Building these test vehicles, Intel’s new entity will combine proprietary capabilities from Mobileye including computer
“Delivering 100 test cars very quickly will demonstrate how this hybrid system can be adapted to meet customer needs,” Shashua said. “Neither company could do this alone. Given resident skill-sets within the two companies, a standalone fleet of test vehicles is possible almost immediately.”
The test fleet will allow the hybrid solution based on Mobileye and Intel technology to be demonstrated to current and prospective customers in a real-world landscape, and also serve as a base to interact directly with regulators. It will also showcase novel concepts of mapping and safety validation, which are both geared toward scalability.
Intel’s testing will not not replace any customer activities; it will be additional to customer testing