Waymo has announced that the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) voted to approve its effort to establish the company’s manufacturing presence to build its self-driving vehicles in the state of Michigan, which will create hundreds of jobs along the way.
“Thanks to our collaboration with MEDC, we’ll bring new job opportunities to the talented citizens of Southeast Michigan,” Waymo says in a company blog post.
“The Great Lakes State is one we already know and love, with a talented workforce and excellent snowy conditions for our cars to test.”
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Ocean Infinity to use its AUVs for mapping and inspections in Brazil
Ocean Infinity has announced that its partner, Brazilian offshore consulting company Cepemais, has been awarded a contract to provide high-resolution hydrographic mapping services to Brazilian national oil company Petrobras.
During the project, which is for the Campos, Espirito Santo and Santos basins, offshore Brazil, Ocean Infinity will work under contract to Cepemais to map an area of 5,000 square kilometers and inspect 12,000 kilometers of pipelines using its AUVs.
Ocean Infinity’s AUVs will operate from the company’s ‘Island Pride’ vessel, and will work in water depths between 50 and 3,000 meters. Cepemais will interpret and report on the data that Ocean Infinity collects during the project.
Newly launched Wave Relay Ecosystem designed to deliver true networked battlefield to warfighters
Persistent Systems has announced the launch of the Wave Relay Ecosystem, which the company describes as an alliance of unmanned systems and sensor companies working together to deliver a “true networked battlefield to warfighters.”
There were six formally announced partners for the Wave Relay Ecosystem as of Tuesday, Jan. 15, including the likes of Insitu, Endeavor Robotics, and MartinUAV. All of the Ecosystem partners are building products that seamlessly operate on Persistent’s Wave Relay mobile ad hoc network (MANET), which allows warfighters to carry less equipment and do more through connected devices on a single, unified network.
CyPhy Works becomes Aria Insights, an AI drone company
CyPhy Works has leveraged its tethered drone technology and morphed into a new company, Aria Insights, to harness the data collected by drones by integrating AI and machine learning into its hardware.
Aria Insights, or AI, will provide customers with intelligent, autonomous drones that collect and analyze data to create actionable insight, thus speeding decision time.
“After 10 years of innovating and redefining drone technology, the team at CyPhy saw the limitations facing the industry — namely the complications and risks of retrieving and analyzing data,” says Lance Vanden Brook, CEO of Aria Insights.
Northwest UAV partners with Embention to offer Veronte Autopilot to unmanned industry
Northwest UAV has announced that it has partnered with Embention to offer what it calls the “most advanced and user-friendly avionics systems” in the industry.
According to Northwest UAV, Embention's Veronte Autopilot is the pilot’s choice for advanced professional UAS and Unmanned Vehicle Control, making the Veronte Autopilots an ideal addition to Northwest UAV’s growing list of product offerings.
“We are very selective about the companies and components that we endorse, and even more selective about what we distribute,” says Jeff Ratcliffe, NWUAV chief technical officer.
Walmart and Udelv to deliver fresh groceries via autonomous vehicles in Arizona
Walmart has announced a new pilot project with Udelv to test autonomous vehicle technology in Surprise, Arizona.
During the pilot, fresh groceries hand-picked by Walmart’s personal shoppers will be delivered to customers by Udelv, using a cargo van custom-made to deliver the items.
“We’re still learning – it’s a pilot – but, we want to make sure we stay on the cutting edge of grocery delivery by exploring what’s new and next,” Walmart says.
In addition to its pilot with Walmart, Udelv also debuted the latest model of its self-driving delivery vans—featuring new state of-the-art technology—this week during CES 2019.
Transdev and Torc Robotics partner to work on fully autonomous shuttle platform
During CES 2019 in Las Vegas, Transdev and Torc Robotics announced that they will work together on a fully autonomous shuttle platform, as the companies believe that shuttles and smaller vehicles will provide complementary mobility to existing public transportation networks across the globe.
Transdev and Torc will integrate Torc’s L4 Asimov self-driving software into the embedded intelligence system of the i-Cristal autonomous shuttle, which was unveiled in September 2018 by Transdev and French industrial company Lohr.
Xilinx and ZF Friedrichshafen partner to enable automated driving applications
With enabling automated driving applications in mind, Xilinx Inc., which specializes in adaptive and intelligent computing, has announced a new strategic collaboration with German car parts maker ZF Friedrichshafen that will result in Xilinx’s technology powering ZF's highly-advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-based automotive control unit known as ZF ProAI.
Xilinx’s Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC platform is being used by ZF to handle real-time data aggregation, pre-processing, and distribution. The platform is also being used to provide compute acceleration for the AI processing in ZF's new AI-based electronic control unit.
Baraja to use latest funding to scale production of tech for autonomous vehicles
Known for developing Spectrum-Scan LiDAR for autonomous vehicles, a company called Baraja has announced a Series A investment of $32 million that it will use to scale production, hire talent and continue its mission to enable safer autonomous driving.
Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and with plans to grow its offices in San Francisco and Shanghai, Baraja recently launched a novel LiDAR system that creates powerful eyes for self-driving vehicles using prism-like optics and shifting wavelengths of light.
Baraja says that since bringing its Spectrum-Scan LiDAR to market, it has worked with the world’s top autonomous technology companies.