In connected car news this week were Tesla, HERE, Kesight, DENSO, STMicroelectronics, MIPI, AEye, Local Motors, HARMAN and Toyota.
Tesla Updates & Rates
Tesla raised its rates for its superchargers. Tesla pushed out a software update, 2018.10 with bug fixes and the ability in the app to open the trunk remotely.
HERE Indoor Maps
HERE Technologies announced that it has completed its acquisition of Micello, a software company based in California that operates a platform for creating, editing and publishing indoor maps.
The acquisition, first announced on January 24, 2018, supports HERE’s strategy to provide world-class mapping and advanced location services both indoors and outdoors.
Keysight Automotive Radar Signal Analysis
Keysight Technologies, Inc., a leading technology company that helps enterprises, service providers, and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, announced the Keysight E8740A Automotive Radar Signal Analysis and Generation Solution. This solution enables radar-based, advanced driver assistance systems to proactively detect and mitigate risks of collisions.
Features:
- Leverages Keysight’s leadership in mmWave technology providing signal analysis from 3 Hz to 110 GHz in a continuous sweep.
- Performs analysis and generation of automotive radar signals across full frequency ranges for 24 GHz, 77 GHz and 79 GHz radar, and provides scalable analysis bandwidth from 2.5 GHz to > 5 GHz, depending on test requirements.
- Offers a scalable test platform that covers present and future frequencies and bandwidths with intuitive tools enabling engineers to rapidly identify, isolate or correct crucial design errors with confidence.
- Delivers precise measurements that offer greater sensitivity and dynamic range to ensure better SNR, with displayed average noise levels (DANL) of –150 dBm up to110 GHz.
- Uses Keysight’s premiere SystemVue Automotive Radar Library (W1908) to easily generate frequency-modulated continuous waveforms (FMCW) and scenarios.
DENSO Buys More Renesas
DENSO Corporation today announced that it has decided to increase its shareholding in Renesas Electronics Corporation to accelerate the development of various in-vehicle systems including automated driving systems that are becoming more advanced, complicated, and larger in scale than ever before. Renesas has cutting-edge technologies for semiconductors that serve as the key devices in such systems.
Recently, in order to meet the needs of complicated vehicle control, the functionality of in-vehicle microcontrollers has been increasing. This is causing their design and manufacturing processes to be more difficult. Manufacturers are expected to accelerate the development of new semiconductors for diversely advanced systems for automated driving, electrification, IoT, and connected driving through a combination of communication and AI-related technologies.
By taking full advantage of its knowledge of in-vehicle products acquired through many years of operation, and in order to develop competitive vehicle control systems in new fields such as automated driving, DENSO considers it essential to further enhance collaboration with semiconductor manufacturers that have profound experience and expertise.
STMicroelectronics Satellite Chipset
STMicroelectronics has introduced a multi-frequency satellite-navigation receiver chipset suitable for safety-critical automotive applications and high accuracy positioning at the decimeter and centimeter-level for PPP and RTK applications. With increasing use of autonomous systems such as lane-departure warning (LDW), adaptive cruise control (ACC), valet parking, and auto-pilot, greater accuracy is needed to ensure safety and reliability.
As the number of sensors continues to increase in the automobile to support passive and active safety, infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving systems, the need for interface specifications is apparent. Building upon the success of the MIPI Alliance Automotive Subgroup and Automotive Birds of a Feather (BoF) Group, the MIPI Board of Directors has approved the creation of the MIPI AWG.
The first focus of the group will be to collaborate with other MIPI working groups on a new automotive physical layer specification for longer reach applications. This work will build upon the success of MIPI Alliance’s development of high-speed physical layer specifications that serve as essential interconnection in mobile and other devices. In addition, the group will look at other existing MIPI specifications and determine their adaptability to automotive use cases.
MIPI Automotive Working Group
The MIPI Alliance, an international organization that develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, today announced the formation of the MIPI Automotive Working Group (AWG) to address the needs of the automotive ecosystem. The group is open to MIPI Contributor members.
iTriangle GPS Certs
iTriangle has launched ARAI certified AIS-140 (Automotive Industry Standard) compliant and certified vehicle telematics GPS Tracking Device. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Govt. of India, has made AIS-140 Certified Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) mandatory on all public transport vehicles from April 2018. Named BHARAT-101, the AIS-140 certified vehicle tracking unit, is an advanced
AEye Patent
On the heels of its Tech CARS Award, artificial perception pioneer AEye today announced it has been awarded foundational patents with numerous claims for its solid state MEMs-based agile LiDAR and embedded AI technology that are core to AEye’s iDAR perception system.
Local Motors & Hinduja Tech
Local Motors selects premier engineering service provider, Hinduja Tech Inc., as the latest partner for continued development of the world’s first co-created, self-driving vehicle, Olli. Olli debuted as a proof of concept on June 16, 2016, and is launching pilot programs beginning Spring of 2018. Local Motors continues to drive open platform development forward through LM Labs by partnering with leading companies throughout the world, bringing the latest in technological advancements and safety to mobility products at unprecedented speeds.
Local Motors chose Hinduja Tech Inc. as a partner as both groups are no stranger to tight timelines and delivering world class products. Hinduja Tech Inc. brings their tantamount experience and proven track records to the table, enabling Local Motors to bring a production scale Olli to market in half the time of traditional manufacturing. Working with Hinduja Tech Inc. also provides Local Motors an extension to their team, promoting collaboration between team members around the world.
HARMAN Partners with Samsung
HARMAN International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., focused on connected technologies for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, and Groupe PSA, the second largest automaker in Europe, announced today at the Geneva International Motor Show that the companies are working together to build a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy for Groupe PSA’s next-generation connected and autonomous vehicles platform. The announcement marks a two-year joint work relationship between the two companies, spanning across multiple projects–from analyzing potential threats, through security design, to a feasibility study of advanced Intrusion Detection Systems for ADAS, Autonomous and Next-Generation vehicle network architectures.
Toyota, JapanTax & KIDDI Taxi Prediction
Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) and JapanTaxi Co., Ltd. (JapanTaxi), jointly with KDDI Corporation (KDDI) and Accenture, have developed a taxi dispatch support system that predicts demand for taxi services, combining data from taxi service logs with predictions of demographics made by location-based big data*1 from smartphones as well as event information. The companies have started to deploy the system in Metropolitan Tokyo on a trial basis.
The system uses artificial intelligence (AI) to predict the number of occupied taxis in Tokyo using 500-meter, mesh-based parameters every 30 minutes. The companies collect taxi service log data and demographic predictions as well as other factors that affect taxi demand such as weather, public transport service availability, and events at large facilities, and apply learning models through an AI-based system to predict the size of demand. In a test run in Tokyo, the system demonstrated a high accuracy rate of 94.1 percent.
Since February 2018 the companies have been piloting the system with select taxis of Nihon Kotsu Co., Ltd., affiliate company of JapanTaxi, using tablet PCs equipped with the system. A map on the tablet shows not only the predicted number of occupied taxis but the latest number of unoccupied taxis around the area, which allows drivers to position their taxis based on the supply-demand balance. As a result, more taxis can serve areas with higher demand and insufficient supply to reduce waiting time for passengers while taxi occupancy rate is increased with optimal vehicle-dispatch. In addition, drivers can receive supporting information on the tablet that shows the routes where they are likely to find passengers, based on insights of excellent drivers.
During the pilot, drivers who used the system recorded an average sales increase of 20.4 percent in February 2018 on a month-to-month basis, compared to an overall average increase of 9.4 percent. Dozens more taxis will trial the system with an aim to roll it out for widespread use later in the year.
The companies believe that the system can contribute to transforming the taxi industry, enhancing convenience while also being used as a training tool for new taxi drivers. The companies plan to research the correlations between an analysis of driving image collected from Toyota’s data-transmission TransLog driving recorder of which installation on taxis will be steadily expanded and taxi demand to leverage for the system, and further develop the system to help create a seamless mobility experience.
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