Intel to build over 100 self-driving test vehicles following acquisition of Mobileye

midian182

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After officially closing its acquisition of machine-vision tech company Mobileye on Tuesday, Intel has announced it will build a fleet of over 100 autonomous vehicles for testing in the United States, Israel, and Europe.

The first of these cars are set to hit the roads later this year in Arizona, where self-driving vehicle testing is popular. They will feature SAE Level 4 capabilities, which means they have a high level of automation and can handle most situations while in self-driving mode. A vehicle with a SAE Level of 5 is classed as possessing full automation.

Intel says the fleet will be made up of different car brands vehicle types. The project will “combine proprietary capabilities from Mobileye including computer vision, sensing, fusion, mapping and driving policy along with Intel’s leading open compute platforms and expertise in data center and 5G communication technologies to deliver a complete “car-to-cloud” system.”

The plan is to show off the hybrid autonomous driving platform to potential OEM partners, who will start integrating it into their vehicles by 2019.

Intel first announced its $15.3 billion acquisition of Israel-based Mobileye back in March. The chipmaker also has partnerships with BMW and Delphi that focus on self-driving vehicle tech.

Having been partners for years, Mobileye ended its relationship with Tesla in 2016 just weeks after the fatal Model S accident in which the car’s autopilot feature was engaged. Months later, co-founder Amnon Shashua said the separation was because Tesla is “pushing the envelope in terms of safety.”

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Of course the real challenge is creating an AI application that can handle less than perfect roads, gravel roads, temporary roadways, etc. And as recently shown, signage that is less than perfect as well as having been altered. Other issues like severe weather, fog, smoke and things that would cause the human driver to stop or turn back will need to be tested as well. So far so good, but I think they still have a ways before it's perfected ......
 
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