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Graphics processor unit (GPU) designer Nvidia announced a spate of new products and services for autonomous vehicles (AVs) at its annual GPU Technology Conference earlier this week:
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- The firm debuted the latest iteration of its AV computing platform, dubbed Nvidia Drive AP2X 9.0. The platform, to be released to customers next quarter, adds a variety of new features — such as camera blindness detection — which enhance AVs’ ability to visualize and respond to the physical world around them.
- It also showed off Safety Force Field (SFF), a new software stack built into Drive AP2X 9.0 which helps AVs predict the movements of nearby vehicles and pedestrians. SFF uses known braking and steering constraints to predict the real-time movements of other cars and objects around an AV. However, it works best in environments where other cars are also equipped with it: "Autonomous vehicles equipped with SFF will, like magnets that repel each other, keep themselves out of harm’s way and not contribute to unsafe situations,” David Nister, VP of autonomous driving software at Nvidia, told Venture Beat.
- Lastly, Nvidia revealed that its AV software simulator, which it released to select customers in September, is now publicly available. Known as Drive Constellation, the software enables automakers, startups, researchers, and the like to simulate their AVs navigating through various weather conditions — such as snowstorms and rainstorms — and on different road surfaces, such as snow-covered roads. Additionally, it can mimic the effects of glare at different times of the day and limited vision at night.
Nvidia is broadening its self-driving portfolio to help cushion against negative effects should customers move production of AV computing systems in-house. Last year, Tesla, arguably Nvidia’s highest-profile customer, abandoned Nvidia’s AV computing systems, instead choosing to build its own chipsets. Nvidia likely fears more of its customers — which include Toyota, Volvo, and Audi — could follow suit. Although the risk of automakers bringing chip design and production in-house is likely small in the short term — because computing systems take years to develop — the long-term risk is significant.
Beyond automakers designing their own computing systems, Nvidia faces formidable competition from chipmaker Intel, which has its own broad slate of AV offerings from its 2017 acquisition of Mobileye. By broadening its AV offerings beyond computing systems, Nvidia is looking to lock more customers into its ecosystem of products and services.
Ultimately, while Nvidia has built up an impressive auto portfolio beyond self-driving — it attributed revenue growth in its automotive segment in Q3 FY 2019 to a ramp up for next-generation AI-based cockpit infotainment systems as well as AV tech — it’s clearly wary of potential long-term threats to its market position in the auto business.
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See Also:
- Tesla’s Model Y pulls from the Model 3’s playbook
- Uber is doubling down on autonomous vehicle tech
- Elon Musk says building a factory is ‘100 times’ as hard as building a car
Source: Business Insider – nshields@businessinsider.com (Nicholas Shields)