Acer unveiled a self-driving concept car at the Taiwan Automotive Technology Innovation Summit 2018 today. According to a press release sent out by the Taiwanese electronics company, it worked in collaboration with Yulon Group, one of the country’s top automakers and its subsidiaries HAITEC and Luxgen. The former is an automotive electronics provider, and the latter, a car brand. Integrating Acer’s autonomous driving system with the Luxgen S3 electric vehicle platform, the two companies demonstrated their Level 4-ready self-driving concept car, reads the press release. By doing so, the companies showcased their shared vision of AI and autonomous driving technology.
“Both the automotive and ICT industries are going through a paradigm shift; automation, connectivity, electrification, and ‘servicification’ are key trends of future development,” commented Edward Lin, Associate Vice President of Value Lab at Acer, Inc. ““In the realm of smart transportation, Acer already has a foothold in electronic ticketing, smart parking, connected car, and traffic prediction, and we’re excited to work with Yulon Group to venture into self-driving cars,” he added.
The Level 4-ready self-driving concept car is based on the Luxgen S3 electric vehicle platform. It embodies Acer’s autonomous driving system, which encompasses sensing, decision-making, and control. Acer’s system leverages AI and sensor fusion algorithms with data from real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning, Lidars, MMW radars, inertial measurement unit (IMU), and ultrasonic sensors. According to the press release, it also uses deep learning technology to perform object recognition. It then implements dynamic vehicle control to enable autonomous driving.
“Autonomous driving is the future trend of the automotive industry, manufacturers around the world are stepping up from level 2 autonomous driving to Level 3 and 4,” commented Jung-Kuei Chen, Vice President of the Product Engineering Group II at HAITEC. “With Acer, we’ve jointly unveiled Taiwan’s first self-driving concept car with ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), IoV (Internet of Vehicles) and autonomous driving technology. Integrating Acer’s expertise in AI and the cloud with HAITEC’s self-developed open vehicle platform, we’ve achieved so much through our cross-industry collaboration,” Chen added.
According to Acer’s press release, the company’s self-driving system makes dynamic vehicle control decisions through AI models based on key data, including image recognition, 3D Lidar obstacle detection, high-precision maps, and real-time positioning. With all of this, the system can steer, brake, cruise, manoeuvre, and park. It also includes a cloud management system for car sharing services so a control centre can send vehicles when users make transportation requests on their mobile device. The system can manage scheduling, monitoring, notifying, and reporting. It also allows safety monitoring and human override.
Lin believes Acer, with its strength across software, hardware, and services, is in a great position to leverage its AI technology and fulfill its vision of offering Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS).