NVIDIA’s DRIVE platform: The brain of autonomous vehicles
By: Harrison Rubin
While companies are all racing to launch their different autonomous vehicles, many of them can agree that NVIDIA has been essential to paving the path towards making autonomous cars a reality.
In 1993, NVIDIA was founded as a graphics chips company and has since entered the automotive industry in the 2000s. With its launch of the DRIVE platform in 2015, NVIDIA successfully entered the autonomous vehicle space by providing a system that efficiently and effectively runs the AI needed to operate an autonomous car. The company’s technology has been such a hit that it has received support from Daimler Benz, Bosch, Continental, Audi, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
What makes the platform so desirable is that it is capable of processing sensor data, vehicle localization, and safe path planning in realtime. Additionally, Senior Director of Automative Danny Shapiro asserts that it is the most energy efficient solution in the market. It can process 320 trillion deep learning operations per second, which is enough to provide up to level 4 or 5 autonomous driving.
NVIDIA has also helped companies test and validate billions of miles driven by vehicles without them ever touching the road. NVIDIA’s DRIVE Constellation AV simulator has become a datacenter for vehicle makers, allowing them to test almost all possible conditions and scenarios that a vehicle could face on the road. These situations include weather and general travel conditions, such as stop signs, bikes, and pot holes. By providing companies with a datacenter to test their vehicle software, vehicle makers can spend less time focusing on acquiring data for in-house testing. This allows them to focus more on designing an efficient vehicle with high functionality.
NVIDIA’s DRIVE platform has provided vehicle makers with a near-infinite number of road conditions and situations. The data from the platform allows companies to enhance their software and see how their vehicles would perform without them ever touching the road. This platform allows vehicle makers to create the safest and most robust software for their vehicles. Additionally, the DRIVE platform allows companies to focus on creating a sleeker and more functional vehicle while enhancing their software.
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- https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2018/09/28/nvidia-from-the-datacenter-to-the-autonomous-car/#2e73fdcd7d23
- https://www.slashgear.com/nvidia-drive-agx-jetson-agx-xavier-dev-kits-roll-out-13545546/
- https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/nvidia-is-taking-over-the-autonomous-driving-industry-here-s-how-14657252
- https://www.nvidia.com/
- https://www.thestreet.com/technology/nvidia-in-the-autonomous-driving-race-14608475
