NVIDIA Autonomous Driving with Mercedes-Benz, Continental, Toyota, VW & ZF

NVIDIA will be having its GPU conference this month on March 26-29. Many are speculating what will be revealed. NIVIDA and its partners have already revealed their latest deals and technology. In the past few months NIVIDIA, Tier 1s and automakers have been very busy.

There were will session on autonomous driving with speakers from Toyota, BMW Group, Mercedes-Benz, MIT, COGNATA and Clemson University. Topics include AI for autonomous simulation, the future in-car expereicne and and solving real-time perception.

NVIDIA & Mercedes-Benz

The new 2019 Mercedes-Benz A-Class supposedly has more brains than any other automobile, thanks to its NVIDIA-powered AI cockpit. The new Mercedes-Benz User Experience — or “MBUX” — infotainment system reinvents the cockpit experience using, real-time 3D graphics and artificial intelligence powered by NVIDIA.

Updatable over the air, MBUX holds additional computational capabilities in reserve, enabling new applications to be deployed over the life of the vehicle. As speech and AI applications evolve, MBUX will be able to add new features and become a better mobile assistant.

MBUX understands indirect speech — instead of responding only to set phrases such as “raise temperature,” the car understands things people really say, like “I’m cold. Make it warmer in here.”

Chery Picks NVIDIA for Level 3 Autonomous Driving

Chery in China is adopting the new NVIDIA’s ZF ProAI system, powered by NVIDIA DRIVE AI self-driving technology, to bring Level 3 autonomous driving to the world’s biggest auto market.

Uber & NVIDIA

Uber selected NVIDIA technology for the AI computing system in its fleets of self-driving cars and trucks. Uber’s fleets have already driven over two million autonomous miles and completed over 50,000 rides. Uber also is working with Toyota for self-driving cars.

NVIDIA & Continental

NVIDIA and Continental, announced they are partnering to create  AI self-driving vehicle systems built on the NVIDIA DRIVE platform, with a planned market introduction starting in 2021. The solutions will utilize Continental’s experience in system and software engineering for ASIL-D rated safety — the highest rating level — and integrate a range of Continental sensor technologies, including radar, camera and high-resolution 3D lidar. Continental and NVIDIA will initially develop highly automated driving features, including 360-degree perception and automatic lane changing on highways, plus the ability to merge in traffic. In addition, the system will integrate HD maps, enabling vehicles to localize themselves and provide mapping updates.

Volkswagen and NVIDIA to Infuse AI into Future Vehicle Lineup

NVIDIA and VW announced that the 2022 VW I.D. Buzz will use NVIDIA DRIVE IX technology for AI co-pilot capabilities. The new I.D. Buzz is Volkswagen’s rebirth of the iconic VW MicroBus, an electric car with AI technology for the cockpit and self-driving. Volkswagen will be using the NVIDIA DRIVE IX platform to create new cockpit experiences and improve safety.

NVIDIA and Aurora

NVIDIA and Auroraj are working together to create a new Level 4 and Level 5 self-driving hardware platform that will use the NVIDIA DRIVE Xavier processor. NVIDIA’s automotive team is working with Aurora to bring up a new modular and scalable DRIVE Xavier platform that will bring autonomous vehicles to market.

NVIDIA, ZF and Baidu for Chinese Market

NVIDIA, ZF and Baidu tare creating a production-ready AI autonomous vehicle platform designed for China, the world’s largest automotive market. The collaboration is based on the new NVIDIA DRIVE Xavier, ZF’s new ProAI car computer and Baidu’s Apollo Pilot, an autonomous driving product targeted for mass production.

While NVIDIA has worked with both ZF and Baidu for over a year, production vehicles using AI self-driving technologies expected on the roads of China starting in 2020.

NVIDIA has partnerships with Tetravue, Expolorer.ai, Cepton, Navya, HERE, AutonomouStuff, Deepmap, Innoviz, Cognata, Adasky and Torc.

NVIDIA Xavier

NVIDIA DRIVE Xavier has more than 9 billion transistors, Xavier is the most complex system on a chip ever created. The first samples of Xavier, initially announced a little more than a year ago, were delivered in the first quarter.