Page 10 - EE Times Europe Magazine – June 2024

SPECIAL REPORT: AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

Pondering the

Trajectory of AV

Adoption

By Anne-Françoise Pelé

ver the past decade, autonomous driving
technologies have advanced significantly,
moving beyond the Gartner hype cycle
Owith real-world deployments. Robotaxis
are now on the streets of San Francisco, Beijing
and Shanghai, and the first L3 autonomous systems
have been launched. By 2035, McKinsey expects
that autonomous driving will create between
US$300 billion and US$400 billion in revenue.
However, full autonomy remains a challenge, and
it might be some time before we can read a book and
enjoy the scenery while our AV drives us safely to our
destination. Safety—for us, our passengers and those
around our vehicle— relies on the sensors operat-
ing properly. Today’s vehicles are equipped with
dozens of camera, radar and LiDAR units, which work
together with sophisticated algorithms and powerful
processors to deliver intelligence and autonomous
functions. The promise of fully autonomous, safe and
reliable AVs will be possible only with a collaborative,
multi-disciplinary approach.
An AV is a safety-critical system that leaves no
room for error, malfunction or compromise. Any fail-
ure can cause accidents that result in serious injuries
or even death. Who is responsible for an accident
with a self-driving car? What sensing solutions are
needed to make AVs smarter? What are the latest
developments in sensor fusion technology? How do
software-defined vehicles reset the safety bar? How
is AI making AVs more reliable? Can AI-powered
self-driving cars race on F1 tracks? What is Nvidia’s
impact on AI-defined AVs?
This Special Report will try to answer these fun-
damental questions and open up new conversations.
It relies on contributions by IDTechEx, Yole Intelli-
gence, MIPI Alliance, Secure-IC, Breker Verification
Systems and VSI Labs, as well as discussions with
Phlux Technology, Innoviz Technologies, BlueWhite,
Analog Devices Inc., the Computer Vision Laboratory
at Sweden’s Linköping University and the Technical
University of Munich Autonomous Motorsport Team. ■
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