Your Tech Story

self-driven cars

BMW Daimler

BMW and Daimler Couples Up on Automated Driving Technology

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By

Self-driving cars have been one of the centres of interest of most of the tech giants, and now, BMW has announced a partnership with the manufacturers of Mercedes Daimler, to head in the same field. The two companies will be working together to develop various services under automotive technologies. These services will include the driver-assistance systems, smart cruise control, automated driving on highways as well as parking, and more.

BMW Daimler
Image Source: thefinancialanalyst.net

According to the announcement made by the two, these plan on building fully autonomous vehicles that would require no human intervention. The companies explained that these will be developing the technology of the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Level 4, such that the vehicles would not need any human support for driving. There may be some conditions in which there will be the obligation of human support, but normally, these vehicles would be self-driving. The SAE levels are set to determine the level of automation, a product can render, especially the transport vehicles.

The companies also revealed that these will be hiring over 1,200 technicians from the two German auto giants for the development work. This partnership is looking forward to bring robo-taxi technology for urban areas, and these vehicles will not be dependent on human support even for the motorway driving and parking.

The companies joined with nine other firms also published a whitepaper, titled, “Safety First for Automated Driving,” as the answers to the concerns of human safety while riding a self-driving car.

Though the two companies have partnered to work on a single technology, the two will be implementing the same on their own cars separately. The announcement has also revealed that the platform developed with this partnership will be open for other companies to implement on their vehicles as well. The vehicles embedded with this technology will be out around 2024 or later.

The two companies have already signed an agreement on autonomous technology in February, and they are also in partnership with other automobile companies for the same. In fact, BMW had joined its hands with companies like Intel and Mobileye NV to work on autonomous technology. With this partnership, BMW will be launching the level 3 iNext vehicle in 2021.

Yandex’s Driver-less Cars are Out Running on the Roads of Moscow

News, Product, Tech News / By

The Google of Russia, and the most used search engine of Russia, Yandex, is doing way beyond a search engine must do. The largest technology firm of Russia started its journey by setting up a search engine in the late 90s and by the end of 2018, it has spread its wings in other fields too. On Tuesday it announced the launch of a self-driving autonomous taxi service, that will soon run on the roads of Moscow.

yandex
Image Source: hearstapps.com

Yandex launched the prototypes of the driverless cars last year, in the month of May, and had already announced Europe’s first autonomous taxi service, back in August this year. The self-driven cars, Waymo by Google, are already running in Silicon Valley, and a launch of such cars out of Silicon Valley is a big achievement for Yandex.

Yandex initially will have two types of vehicles, based on the driver-less technology, and will run in the 400-hectare region of Skolkovo, in the Innopolis technology park. The car will have fixed fares for particular destinations, and the user can choose the destinations through an app, on their smartphones.

The self-driven cars by Yandex have sensors, video cameras and lidar, that enables the cars to judge the distance from other cars and other obstacles, using lasers. The odometry, used in the car, calculates how much the tyres of the vehicle have moved, and in which direction. The vehicle is embedded with the technology, that can identify the traffic lights, road marking, and the road signs. The vehicle can also predict the next situation as according to the makers, no one follows all the rules properly, so the car must be intelligent enough, to plan and predict the next step, that must be executed to avoid any type of mishappening.

Although the car has been tested with all its features and is good to go, for now, there will be a human driver sitting on the other seat of the car, to take over the driving at the time of emergency. The driver will be removed soon from the car, and Yandex is planning to reach out to more places, in Russia, where it can impose those self-driven cars. It is also planning to make the technology compatible with different brands cars.