Autonomous & Self-Driving Vehicle News: Waymo, May Mobility & Cyngn

In autonomous and self-driving vehicle news are Waymo, May Mobility and Cyngn.

Waymo Recalls Fleet–After Hitting Pole

Alphabet’s Waymo, has initiated a voluntary recall its fleet of 672 self-driving vehicles. This action comes in response to a safety recall notice by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The reason for this recall was an incident on May 21 in Phoenix, where a Waymo vehicle collided with a utility pole while executing a low-speed pullover maneuver. No passengers were aboard during the incident, and there were no associated injuries reported—only vehicle damage.

According to the NHTSA report, Waymo determined that all 672 vehicles exhibited a common defect or design deficiency contributing to the collision. Waymo has  recalled the software across its entire fleet to address this issue

May Mobility Pilot in Detroit

May Mobility, a leader in the development and deployment of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology,  announced the launch of the Detroit Automated Driving Systems (ADS) pilot in partnership with the City of Detroit’s Office of Mobility Innovation (OMI) and the Michigan Mobility Collaborative (MMC). The “Accessibili-D” service aims to improve the quality of life for Detroiters who live with disabilities or are age 62 and older. The service will be available to select residents of Detroit starting Thursday, June 20, 2024 through 2026.

May Mobility will deploy three AVs, including two wheelchair-accessible vehicles, to help participants achieve greater access to healthcare facilities, shopping centers, jobs, and social and recreational activities. The free service will operate across 68 stops in 11 square miles of downtown Detroit Monday and Wednesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on the weekend from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Persons interested in riding the service must submit an Expression of Interest form and will be contacted to enroll. Once enrolled, they can book a ride through the Accessibili-D app, powered by Via, the global leader in TransitTech, or by calling (734) 209-3408.

“Many Detroiters have trouble getting around due to the costs of owning a car or mobility challenges arising from age or disabilities,” said Edwin Olson, CEO and co-founder of May Mobility. “We’re excited to show how autonomous technology can help in Detroit, where we will be launching our largest service area to date.”

Last July, the Detroit City Council unanimously approved a $2.4 million contract with May Mobility to provide the Accessibili-D service. The MMC and May Mobility have conducted a variety of outreach programs within the community to educate future riders about the benefits of May Mobility’s AVs and to pinpoint specific locations of interest around downtown Detroit that best serve the members using the service. Based on rider feedback, May Mobility and OMI plan to further expand the service zone over the coming months with additional stops and vehicles.

“We’re thrilled to launch the ‘Accessibili-D’ autonomous shuttle service, a vital step toward enhancing mobility for our older residents and those with disabilities.  This free, innovative service will provide safe and efficient transportation, greatly improving access to essential services for residents who have faced difficulty navigating their needs in the city,” said Tim Slusser, chief of the Office of Mobility Innovation at the City of Detroit. “We are thankful for the expert collaboration of the institutions and individuals at the Michigan Mobility Collaborative and May Mobility for their invaluable partnership. Together, we’re making Detroit a more inclusive city for all.”

May Mobility performed extensive vehicle testing with the University of Michigan’s Mcity and the American Center for Mobility (ACM) in preparation for launch. Testing protocols included the Mcity Safety Assessment Program, made up of a Driver’s License Test and Driving Intelligence Test, and a comprehensive testing and evaluation process developed by ACM that simulated genuine scenarios encountered in urban settings like Detroit.

May Mobility’s AVs use its Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) technology to effectively navigate city streets. Each vehicle is equipped with multiple lidar, radar and cameras which feed MPDM a 360-degree view of its surroundings. Using the data collected from the AV’s sensor suite, MPDM is able to virtually simulate thousands of possible scenarios every second. As the AV detects vehicles, pedestrians, bikers and pets, MPDM quickly analyzes the best maneuver to perform in order to efficiently and safely reach its destination, even in unencountered situations.

The Detroit Automated Driving Systems pilot is May Mobility’s 14th deployment to date. The company currently operates in Ann Arbor, Mich.Grand Rapids, Minn.Miami, Fla.Arlington, Texas and Sun City, Ariz.

Cyngn CV Built on NVIDIA

Cyngn Inc. (Nasdaq: CYN) has announced progress of its proprietary computer vision (CV) technology for industrial autonomous machines, built on NVIDIA accelerated computing. This announcement showcases the cutting-edge capabilities of Cyngn’s DriveMod solutions, highlighting how NVIDIA hardware and CUDA acceleration libraries have enabled Cyngn to develop differentiated self-driving features with artificial intelligence (AI), CV, and localization and mapping.

The DriveMod system has been successfully deployed on material handling vehicles from established manufacturers like BYDMotrec, and Columbia Vehicle Group, catering to a diverse range of clients from private manufacturing and distribution companies to Fortune 100s like John Deere.

In collaboration with Arauco, which pre-ordered 100 DriveMod Forklifts last summer, Cyngn leveraged NVIDIA technologies to introduce sophisticated features to advance the capabilities of autonomous machines in industrial settings. The DriveMod Forklift showcases exciting capabilities in computer vision, including enumeration of the number of pallets in a tall stack and detection of non-standard pallet pockets. For full details, see Cyngn’s blog post.

“Cyngn has been a part of the NVIDIA Inception program since our early days working on AI technology,” said Cyngn’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lior Tal. “Seeing years of collaboration evolve from research and development to deploying unique product features for end customers is not only exciting, but it is also a testament to the power of NVIDIA’s cutting-edge technologies.”

About Cyngn

Cyngn develops and deploys scalable, differentiated autonomous vehicle technology for industrial organizations. Cyngn’s self-driving solutions allow existing workforces to increase productivity and efficiency. The Company addresses significant challenges facing industrial organizations today, such as labor shortages, costly safety incidents, and increased consumer demand from eCommerce.

Cyngn’s DriveMod Kit can be installed on new industrial vehicles at end of line or via retrofit, empowering customers to seamlessly adopt self-driving technology into their operations without high upfront costs or the need to completely replace existing vehicle investments.

Cyngn’s flagship product, its Enterprise Autonomy Suite, includes DriveMod (autonomous vehicle system), Cyngn Insight (customer-facing suite of AV fleet management, teleoperation, and analytics tools), and Cyngn Evolve (internal toolkit that enables Cyngn to leverage data from the field for artificial intelligence, simulation, and modeling).