LBS

3,000+ Km Navigation-assisted autonomous driving expedition

XPeng Inc. has announced the launch of a long-distance navigation-assisted autonomous driving expedition from March 19 to 26, 2021, covering a total distance of 3,675 km across six provinces in China. The performance of XPeng’s newly released autonomous driving assistance function – Navigation Guided Pilot (NGP) – will be fully tested in 3,145 km of highway driving, starting from Guangzhou, all the way north to Beijing.

The total distance of 3,675 km consists of about 3,145 km of highways, where the key functionalities and reliability of the NGP, including automatic highway ramp entering and exiting, automatic switching of highways and optimization of lane choices, automatic lane changing, overtaking and speed limit adjustment, will be fully tested by the press and third parties. The frequency of human driver intervention, and the success rate for the functions listed above, are among the key indicators to be tested in these sophisticated driving scenarios on China’s highways. https://en.xiaopeng.com

Voice Assistant Capabilities Integration into its GPS Location Platform

GTX Corp has announced the integration of smart voice assistant technology to its suite of GPS devices and management tools.

By incorporating natural language processing (NLP) and voice assistant features into its GPS tracking backend platform and utilizing home assistant devices, such as Amazon Echo, Google Home or IBM Watson, customers will be able to retrieve relevant information about devices such as location and movement. In coordination with the launch of its completely re-engineered 4G LTE GPS SmartSole and module, users will be able to call alerts, set geo-fences and know where family members, or even pets are with a simple voice command. GTXCorp.com

Verizon enters into agreement with incubed IT

Verizon has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire incubed IT, the creator of a software platform providing autonomous navigation tools to administer, manage and optimize mixed fleets of robots in industrial settings. Upon closing and as Verizon continues to expand its 5G coverage, capacity, and mobile edge compute capabilities, incubed IT’s autonomous software will enable enterprise customers to gain new efficiencies as they scale their autonomous mobile robot fleets. verizon.com

Sensible 4 autonomous driving software tested by VTT

Early this year Sensible 4 started trials with two open road pilots in Norway, one near Oslo and another one in Gjesdal. To enable these pilots, a driving permit from Vegvesen, the Norwegian road authority, was required. In Finland, VTT has a long history with autonomous machines and testing. Vegvesen relied on VTT’s technical expertise in testing and validation of Sensible 4 autonomous systems.

The tests that preceded the Norway pilots, including the obstacle detection and avoidance trials, were conducted in Nummela airfield in September 2020. The measurements were carried by using the automated vehicle tools and prototypes developed by VTT for enabling benchmarking the automated driving functions. The test scenarios included reacting to several static and as well as dangerously moving objects in the front of the vehicle. Sensible 4 technology performed safely in all the tested scenarios. The tests were carried out systematically analyzing the driving scenarios, safety risks and conducting real measurements. https://sensible4.fi

Baidu to demonstrate commercialized autonomous driving

Baidu, Inc. received qualifications for 35 vehicles to demonstrate commercialized autonomous driving operations, and qualifications for 10 vehicles to conduct driverless testing, by Cangzhou traffic authorities. These qualifications will allow Baidu to be the first company in China to experiment with various monetization mechanisms for autonomous driving services, marking a landmark step on Baidu Apollo’s road to commercialization. In recent years, Cangzhou has been a leading city for the development of autonomous driving. It was the first city in northern China to carry out manned tests of autonomous driving and has the third largest intelligent-connected test road network in the country.

ADLINK Launches Compact SMARC AI-on-Module

ADLINK Technology Inc., a global leader in edge computing, has launched the LEC-IMX8MP SMARC module, the first SMARC rev. 2.1 AI-on-Module (AIoM) that uses NXP’s next-generation i.MX 8M Plus SoC for edge AI applications. The LEC-IMX8MP integrates NXP NPU, VPU, ISP and GPU computing in a compact size for future-proof AIbased applications across industrial AIoT/ IoT, smart homes, smart cities and beyond. www.adlinktech.com

Location IQ partners with Orbital Insight

Location IQ, a leading Australian economic consultancy firm specializing in location, property, mapping and data solutions, announced that it is expanding its partnership with Orbital Insight, the geospatial analytics company.

Location IQ provides property clients with geospatial analysis powered by Orbital Insight to help inform strategic business decisions. Location IQ first partnered with Orbital Insight in March 2020 to analyze 40 shopping centers in New South Wales, amid growing uncertainty at the start of the pandemic.

Location IQ will use the Orbital Insight GO platform to monitor the shifting patterns of activity at over 1,000 shopping centers across Australia. www.locationiq.com.au