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Sensors/Data Acquisition

New Performance Metrics for Lidar

How do you measure the effectiveness of an intelligent, lidar-based perception system for autonomous vehicles? Conventional evaluation metrics favor frame rate and resolution as the ideal criteria. However, certain experts believe that these criteria are inadequate.

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Articles
Robotics, Automation & Control

Can Autonomous Vehicles Make the Right ‘Decision?’

Experience would suggest we seek to incorporate many types of diversity into our designs. We need to understand the ethical issues, even if the Trolley Problem is merely a diversion away from seeking a design that makes the best decisions based on information available at the time.

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Articles
Software

Waymo, GM and Ford Pegged as Autonomous “Leaders” by Latest Navigant Report

According to a new report from Navigant research, Waymo (Google), GM and Ford have earned the title of “leaders” in regards to their progress in developing...

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Articles
Automotive

Designs to Dye for: Autonomy’s New-Materials Revolution

Evolving vehicle engineering constantly reshapes vehicle architectures. But along with electrified drive-trains and autonomous capabilities is the need for a mindset shift in materials, opening the way for new sustainable solutions in color, materials and finish (CMF).

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Articles
AR/AI

Dining on Data

Every year, NVIDIA hosts its GPU Technology Conference, a multi-day news conference/ expo to highlight the advances the tech company has made in the past 12 months.

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Articles
Transportation

First Smile, Last Smile

May Mobility is building a unique business model around AV shuttle services. The young Ann Arbor-based company’s shuttles currently are servicing routes in Detroit; Columbus, Ohio, and Providence, Rhode Island. A service in Grand Rapids, Michigan, launches this summer.

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Articles
Aerospace

Supersonic Spy Drone

The D-21 was intended to answer a question that was driving U.S. national security officials mad: How was the Chinese military progressing in its effort to build and test nuclear weapons?

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Articles
AR/AI

'Road Race' for AV Testing May Be Slowing

Chris Hoyle, Technical Director of software specialist rFpro, believes the race by auto and technology companies to be ahead of competitor programs involving autonomous vehicle (AV) testing on...

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Articles
Connectivity

5G Cellular May Be Transformational for Automakers, Suppliers

Connected vehicles are going mainstream, autonomous vehicles are poised to emerge—and cellular communications appears to be a central infrastructural base for both. The rollout...

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Articles
Unmanned Systems

Automated-Vehicle ‘Goiters’ Be Gone!

Warts. Bumps. Blisters. Protruberances. These and other less-flattering terms are used by vehicle designers and engineers to describe the bulging, non-integrated sensor placement that has become the...

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Articles
Unmanned Systems

New Mobility’s Mega-Mappers

A yellow sign on a mountain highway shows an S-shaped curve. This is a primitive map, and hardly a faithful representation of the road. Instead it delivers a simple signal to the driver: Get ready for turns.

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Articles
Power

Autonomy for the Masses

Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC aims to do for AVs what the Model T did for just about everyone, CEO Sherif Marakby explains in an interview.

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Articles
Software

New Automotive Radars Take Tech from a Blip to a Boom

Since it first appeared in automobiles in the 1980s, radar has become a reliable and increasingly cost-efficient tool for detecting objects on the road and along the roadside. The...

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Articles
Aerospace

Is the Future of Aerial Autonomy up in the Air?

At January’s CES ’19, more than 170 exhibitors showed aerial drones of various shapes and sizes. Potential use cases for these devices appear to be limitless, but technical, legal and...

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Articles
Test & Measurement

Safety Testing for AVs Is Just Beginning

NHTSA’s plan to eventually update its New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) with new crash-test protocols is good news for both consumers and the mobility safety-systems industry. A revised NCAP will...

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Articles
Software

Speeding Thermal Analysis for Autonomous EVs

Siemens PLM recently introduced a new Simcenter software solution for thermal simulation used in autonomous electric vehicle (AEV) development. The product is designed to help engineers quickly solve heat-related challenges related to the vehicles’ high-power electronics.

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Articles
AR/AI

The Swedish Word for AV Tech

The first automotive camera with built-in Deep Learning — considered to be a significant step forward in autonomous-vehicle sensor technology — is due to launch this year.

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Articles
Test & Measurement

Road Tested

Now senior VP of the Transportation Systems Group at Econolite, a traffic-network engineering and integration company, Kirk Steudle spoke with SAE’s Autonomous Vehicle Engineering about transportation’s evolution and the challenges ahead.

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News
Connectivity

Computer-Generated Scenes Provide Virtual Testing for Autonomous Vehicles

The next million miles of autonomous-vehicle test roadways await in a start-up company’s virtual -orld toolbox that is targeting its next release for early 2019.

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News
Imaging

Deere Touts Software, AI Tech at CES

John Deere highlighted the growing role of digital controls, becoming the first off-highway equipment maker to bring ag equipment to the CES consumer electronics conference early in January. Deere’s...

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Articles
Internet of Things

Industry Remains Unsettled on Vehicle Connectivity Standard

As autonomous vehicles inch closer to reality, a diverse range of companies and public entities are exploring ways to maximize their positive impact on traffic flows and...

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The Navigator
Manned Systems

Needed - a Step Beyond STEM

For more than a decade, education advocates have made the case for a greater effort in teaching kids about science, technology, engineering and math. As an engineer, I’m all for STEM. More of our population needs to understand these topics. However, as I get older and continue to observe the impact of technology on...

News
Power

ZF’s Current Innovations Build for EV, AV Future

As the product-development landscape for light-vehicle electrification and automated-driving technologies begins to become less cluttered, it’s apparent that established automotive Tier 1...

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Articles
Connectivity

StreetDrone: Rolling R&D Vehicle for Small-Scale AV Developers

Even for well-funded automakers, suppliers, start-up businesses and academic institutions, the cost of developing specific technologies needed to support autonomous-vehicle (AV)...

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News
Imaging

MIPI Phone Alliance Standard Aims at Automotive Sensors

Smartphones may expand their burgeoning role in the automotive industry. The MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) Alliance, which created interface standards for smartphone...

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Articles
Software

End Public ‘Shadow’ Driving!

The fundamental premise of shadow driving is that the vehicle has learned the proper management of possible events which may occur during the maneuvers, and the human observer can react fast enough to stop any negative results from occurring.

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Articles
Transportation

Florida’s Babcock Ranch and the Future of Autonomous Communities

On an 18,000-acre tract within Babcock Ranch, a developer named Syd Kitson is pioneering a new and sustainable model for development in Florida and stepping past the century-old order of the automobile age.

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