Autonomous & Self-Driving Vehicle News: Ford, Argo AI, Ouster, Velodyne, Cepton & Fox ID

In autonomous and connected car news are Ford, Argo AI, Ouster, Velodyne, Cepton and Fox ID.

Ford TaaS Coming to Miami

It’s now been three years since Miami-Dade became the first place in the world where Ford Motor Company would test and commercialize its new self-driving services. The journey so far has been one marked by progress. Miamians will soon have the ability to hail a ride or receive a delivery in a way that is safe, consistent, valued and efficient.

Ford’s partners at Argo AI have been developing the self-driving technology to build a ride experience that feels natural on the streets of Miami-Dade. Ford has been building the various elements needed for a business of this nature, including its Transportation-as-a-Service software (TaaS), our fleet operations, the user experience, the vehicle, and the business collaborations with the brands that will be able to leverage our fleets and services. In the past three years, Ford and Argo AI have also come to know  fellow Miamians really well., “We’ve learned the roads, the driving habits and the incredible opportunities in store for the future of The Magic City,”

Ouster Chips Make in Thailand

Ouster, Inc. (“Ouster”), a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar sensors for the industrial automation, smart infrastructure, robotics, and automotive industries, is scaling production and achieving major automotive milestones through its partnership with Benchmark Electronics, a strategic contract manufacturer. Benchmark’s global expertise in microelectronics, optics, printed circuit board assembly, and automated testing has enabled Ouster to increase production capabilities, shipping over 2,000 sensors in 2020.

Ouster has shifted the majority of its sensor production to Benchmark’s facility in Thailand, located in a region known for its photonics expertise and highly-skilled labor. Production has already scaled substantially; in Q4 2020 alone, total sensor output increased by over 60% compared to the previous quarter. With Benchmark’s custom microelectronics line, a full-sensor assembly line, and an end-of-line test room within a single facility, Ouster expects Benchmark’s capabilities will result in continued acceleration of production capacity to over thousands of units per month while maintaining quality and costs.

Benchmark’s Thailand facility complies with international standards that govern quality and environmental requirements for the industry, including ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, and automotive IATF 16949. Major automotive OEMs completed audits of Ouster’s facility on Benchmark’s Thailand campus in 2019, confirming compliance with quality standards and volume production capacity. This is a critical milestone for any lidar manufacturer in their quest to meet automotive-grade specifications.

Ouster Outfits QCraft’s Robobuses

Velodyne Lidar, Inc. announced the Disruptive Women Powering Our Autonomous Future Summit featuring prominent female executives and engineers discussing the future of AV technology and the critical role of women in making it all possible. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell from Michigan’s 12^th District and Laura Major, Chief Technology Officer of Motional, are the featured keynote speakers. The summit will address the positive impact of elevating women into positions of power within the AV industry and the importance of supporting girls through Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) programs.

The summit takes place on March 25 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PDT. It is a free virtual event delivered through a state-of-the-art conference platform. For more information and to register, please go to: Disruptive Women Powering Our Autonomous Future.

The AV industry is set firmly on course to alter the fabric of global infrastructure and society. Yet, women are severely underrepresented in the automotive industry – particularly in executive and engineering roles. With women making up only 20 percent of all college engineering students, it is key to educate and inspire the current and next generations of women in these fields.

The event emcee is Selika Talbott, a Professorial Lecturer at American University who formerly worked as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation Administrator and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator.

The summit’s expert-led sessions are designed to educate, inspire and deliver actionable insight. In addition to the keynotes, the agenda includes a fireside chat and panels. The fireside chat features leading tech executive, Claire Delaunay, Vice President of Engineering at NVIDIA. The chat is moderated by Leslie J. Allen, News Editor at Automotive News, where she supervises the newspaper’s coverage of new mobility.

The panels include a diverse group of powerhouse women who will share their experiences and wisdom. Panelists are from Aptiv, Berkeley Haas Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership, Commission on the Future of Mobility, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, May Mobility, Nissan North America, NVIDIA, STEER, Toyota North America, Velodyne Lidar and Zoox.

The panel sessions are:

• Disruptive Women in the Driver’s Seat, sponsored by Partners for Automated Vehicle Education
• The Female Engineer’s Perspective on Navigating the Future of AV Tech, sponsored by SAE International
• STEM as The Critical Starting Point for Equal Representation in AV Tech, sponsored by Berkeley Lab
• Eliminating Hidden Bias in Autonomy and Beyond, sponsored by Women in Autonomy

“The autonomous vehicle industry is evolving rapidly and representation is critical. Fortunately, all of us can play a role in shaping what the AV world will look like so that it reflects and serves our society as a whole,” said Sally Frykman, Chief Marketing Officer, Velodyne Lidar. “The summit is a must-attend event for everyone, where we can all learn from female thought leaders in the automotive and technology industries.”

Ception & Red Fox ID

–A state-of-the art electronic tolling system that utilizes high-performance lidar sensors from Cepton and a cutting-edge vehicle identification solution from Red Fox ID is expected to be deployed on a major highway turnpike crossing multiple states in the United States, thereby promising fast, highly accurate, barrier-free, real-time tolling to enable smooth traffic flows. This marks the maturing of the deep partnership between Cepton and Red Fox ID in bringing innovative, automated tolling solutions to major customers across North America, EMEA and Asia.

Based on an extended collaboration with leading lidar solution provider Cepton, Red Fox ID – a leading designer and developer of vehicle identification and classification solutions – has developed a multi-lane, free flow tolling system called Quantum, which is able to accurately detect, track and classify vehicles of any size or type at highway speeds. Quantum uses Cepton’s Micro Motion Technology (MMT^®) based Sora™-P60 or Sora™-P90 lidar sensors for high-resolution vehicle profiling, to enable integrators and road operators to achieve highly accurate customer billing in real time, with free flow, barrier-free tolling.

For tolls to be charged correctly based on vehicle class, traditional tolling systems often use tollbooths for manual processing or depend on vehicle speed reduction infrastructure to allow for time to capture vehicle information. That can cause congestion, increased emissions and frustration amongst customers. More advanced systems that aim to enable faster tolling, however, are often subject to significant errors, such as missed vehicles or wrong vehicle classification, due to known limitations of the sensors currently being used, such as cameras and weight-based ground sensors. Vehicle classification errors can have significant operating cost consequences for tolling operators while leakage leads to lower revenues. With tollways processing tens of millions of vehicles a year, the cumulative impact of inaccuracies and errors creates significant administrative costs, losses and customer dissatisfaction.

Red Fox ID’s Quantum solution addresses such challenges by adding an extra layer of accuracy to the tolling system by integrating Cepton’s unique lidar technology. A gantry-mounted system using Quantum is therefore able to accurately detect and track vehicles, even as they switch lanes. The lidar-enabled Quantum solution captures and extracts high quality information, such as vehicle velocity, size and class. All of that information is used as input to a separate billing system to compute and apply the appropriate tolling charge. Quantum can also direct camera-based systems on the gantry to capture a vehicle’s front and rear plates in the event that a transponder cannot be detected. Through these innovations, Quantum has demonstrated a vehicle detection accuracy in all traffic conditions of 99.96%, an axle classification accuracy in all traffic conditions of 99.9% and a vehicle length accuracy of +/-5%. This world-class performance is enabled by Cepton’s innovative Sora-P sensor family which has been tested and proven during extended trials, including in various weather and light conditions.

The recently released Sora-P90 lidar features an industry-leading 380 Hz frame rate to deliver 1140 line scans per second, providing high-fidelity profiling of vehicles passing at highway speeds. Powered by Cepton’s patented, rotation-free, frictionless and mirrorless MMT^®, the Sora-P90 is rugged, reliable and scalable, making it ideally suited for automated tolling applications. In addition, with its 90° horizontal field of view, the lidar can be set up using one gantry instead of requiring two separate sensors and gantries, making overall deployment more cost effective for tolling system integrators.

With their unparalleled experienced in building innovative tolling solutions, and deep understanding of the industry trend away from ground loop-based tolling systems towards next-generation gantry-based overhead systems powered by advanced sensor technologies, Red Fox ID has been working with Cepton on multiple trials and proof of concept projects across the globe since 2019. This has allowed both partners to expand the application of advanced lidar intelligence for high accuracy tolling on highways and roadways in a growing list of countries, across North America, EMEA and Asia.

Crystal Group Works with TuSimple

Crystal Group, Inc., a leading designer and manufacturer of rugged computer and electronic hardware, announced it is working with trucking companies—including TuSimple, the world’s largest and most advanced self-driving truck company—and robotics developers to accelerate the seamless AI-enabled performance of autonomous trucks and heavy construction machinery in demanding environments.

Built to ensure seamless real-time situational awareness and operation regardless of ever-changing conditions, Crystal Group’s autonomous vehicle compute (AVC) solutions combine their proprietary ruggedization techniques and game-changing 12-V DC, ATX-compliant server with NVIDIA’s robust GPUs. Using a power supply that interfaces directly with the vehicle’s battery, these servers eliminate the need for a separate power converter while delivering 1,500 or 2,000 watts of power to interpret and act upon the massive inputs captured by the vehicle’s network of sensors, radar and cameras. An optional liquid cooling system outputs the waste heat to prevent throttling due to the significant heat generated by the power-hungry compute requirements.

Wide-spread adoption of AI-enabled autonomous capabilities is expected to proliferate across trucking and construction, as well as agriculture, mining, and oil and gas, given the significant benefits—including improved operating efficiencies, quality and productivity, reduced operating costs and risks due to human error, and safer roadways and work sites—that stand to be gained. By 2025, the self-driving truck market is projected to reach $1.67B while autonomous construction forecasts reach $14B by 2023.