The future of automated driving at embedded world

AImotive’s new vehicle system simulator aiSim, launched at CES 2019, will also be on display featuring a new purpose-built physics-accurate simulation and rendering engine.

A silicon implementation of AImotive’s aiWare hardware IP will also be shown, developed by Verisilicon using GlobalFoundries’ 22FDX process, demonstrating the potential power and performance benefits of highly optimised NN hardware acceleration.

To emphasise its drive for maximising collaboration in the automated driving industry, AImotive has designed its toolbox of technologies for the development of self-driving technologies in a modular and highly scalable way. This allows OEMs, Tier1s and robotaxi providers to mix and match AImotive’s technologies with their existing solutions to create more advanced, cost-competitive and safer automated driving systems.

Thanks to this flexibility, the company’s partners and customers are able to utilise the modular architecture of aiDrive, and the aiSim verification platform, to create productisable automated driving systems faster.

“Mature production-ready embedded solutions will become increasingly important for OEMs as more advanced autonomous vehicles enter production,” said Peter Kovács, Chief Product Officer.

“At Embedded World we are showcasing how AImotive has built a range of scalable self-driving solutions based on our highly modular and comprehensive software toolkits. Our customers are able to mix and match their capabilities with ours to create complete, differentiated embedded solutions faster, empowering our growing ecosystem of customers and partners throughout the supply chain.”

Current automotive-grade hardware platforms lack the performance to accelerate full self-driving software stacks. While AImotive has taken strides forward preparing its solutions for embedded hardware platforms with aiDrive2, the company believes wider industry collaboration is vital to achieve true autonomy in volume production. To demonstrate what is possible on today’s platforms, selected modules of aiDrive2 will be displayed showcasing a limited implementation of the self-driving software on Nvidia’s Drive PX2 embedded platform.

Beyond aiDrive this is showcased in the aiSim2 simulator. Also on display at the booth, the new simulator can drastically accelerate the development of autonomous technologies while overcoming the limitations of game engine-based simulators through the ability to ensure deterministic physically-based rendering on any hardware setup. Due to its modular architecture selected modules of aiSim can also easily be integrated into other existing simulation solutions.

The company’s neural network accelerator hardware IP, aiWare, will also be on show at Embedded World. Created through a partnership between AImotive, VeriSilicon and Global Foundries, the chip accelerates any CNN, including AImotive’s own proprietary networks, while consuming 10x-20x less power than a GPU executing the same task at the same speed. The highly scalable aiWare architecture can be licensed for a wide range of embedded use cases, including smart sensor, sensor fusion engines, or central compute clusters for automated driving platforms.

Experts from AImotive will be on-hand to discuss its next-generation products in Hall 4A at booth 625 throughout the duration of the show.