autonomous

The United States Navy has tapped Lockheed Martin to study the potential for large autonomous ships that will be able to operate for long periods of time at sea without any human crew members. The company is now the main contractor behind the US Navy's Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) competition, joining multiple other companies in working toward the eventual development and launch of a large autonomous ship.

Continue Reading

Ford is testing an automated parking garage that would allow vehicles to be sent off to park themselves, potentially paving the way to ease self-driving technologies into the mainstream. The system, which Ford co-developed with Bosch, allows Escape SUVs to navigate themselves through a specially-equipped parking structure, and then be remotely summoned again via an app.

Continue Reading

Lucid Motors has revealed the bevy of sensors its upcoming Lucid Air electric luxury car will be equipped with, as it paves the way for future autonomous driving capabilities. The Lucid DreamDrive system will consist of LIDAR, cameras, radar, and ultra-sonic sensors, in addition to extra driver-monitoring systems inside the vehicle, all in the name of either supporting the person behind the wheel or, eventually, replacing them altogether.

Continue Reading

Ford and Intel have inked a deal to give future cars better vision, with Mobileye vision-sensing tech being used to power the automaker's driver assistance systems. Mobileye EyeQ will be used for systems like Ford Co-Pilot360, including both hardware and software, and eventually form part of the technology behind Ford Active Drive Assist in 2021.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk is confident that Tesla will have "the basic functionality" of fully autonomous vehicles by the end of the year, though it's uncertain whether the outspoken CEO's predictions will result in an electric car able to truly drive itself on public roads any time soon. Musk has been a vocal proponent of the feasibility of so-called Level 5 self-driving, countering broader skepticism of just how close to deployment autonomous vehicles actually are.

Continue Reading

Amazon acquired a company called Zoox to "help bring their vision of autonomous ride-hailing to reality." It's important right this minute to be extra clear, here, that Amazon did NOT just acquire the video conferencing brand Zoom - that's a different company altogether. Amazon acquired Zoox, a California-based company "working to design autonomous ride-hailing vehicles from the ground up."

Continue Reading

Mercedes-Benz will use NVIDIA's DRIVE platform for its driver-assistance and autonomy in future vehicles, the automaker has announced today, including powering cars that can drive themselves from address to address on regular routes. The deal will see the first new Mercedes using NVIDIA DRIVE from 2024, as the German automaker revamps its fleet.

Continue Reading

BMW and Mercedes-Benz have put their autonomous driving collaboration on hold, blaming the expense of building a shared system for the decision. The two German automakers announced their self-driving alliance in early 2019, focusing on developing a Level 4 autonomous system that would allow their cars to navigate independently without any human involvement, within certain conditions.

Continue Reading

Ford's Mustang Mach-E electric crossover will join a very exclusive club of vehicles with hands-free driver assistance, still far from full autonomy but nonetheless promising a more relaxed driving experience - if the conditions are right. Though the 2021 Mustang Mach-E is on track to begin deliveries later this year, the newly-announced Ford Active Drive Assist system won't actually be available until late 2021. However confusion around the system is already cropping up now.

Continue Reading

Computational photography trailblazer Light has quietly given up its smartphone camera ambitions, despite inking deals with Nokia, Sony, and others to use complex multi-sensor tech for better images. The company's approach eschewed the "one big sensor" angle that was most prevalent in smartphones, replacing it with a cluster of multiple sensors the data of which would be combined to produce a final frame.

Continue Reading

The primary objective for self-driving cars, at least the ones pushed by proponents of the technology, isn't the convenience of the driver or passenger. That is just one of the goals or even a by-product of what these autonomous vehicles bring to the table. After all, one can only sit back and relax and take one's hands off the wheel and eyes of the road when you're 200% sure the self-driving car can safely drive itself through any road condition or obstacle. It turns out, however, that our current autonomous driving technologies can only avoid 34% of crashes that human drivers caused.

Continue Reading

Volkswagen and autonomous vehicle company Argo AI have completed their $2.6 billion investment deal, paving the way for future VW Group models to gain new driverless tech. Argo AI broke cover in 2017 with a billion dollars of Ford's money to play with; now, it's expanding to a new facility in Europe.

Continue Reading