Photo: DR

The partnership between BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye was made public last July. It has enabled the development of an adaptable architecture that can be used by other car manufacturers and developers in the production of high-tech models and the creation of distinct brands. This offer covers both individual modules and a complete ready-to-use solution, and therefore allows a wide range of differentiated experiences to be offered.

“The main ambition of this cooperation with Intel and Mobileye is to make autonomous driving a reality for our customers. This partnership involves many talents and skills to meet the technological challenges that await us, and to succeed in the commercialization stage of autonomous vehicles. This is why we are already thinking in terms of adaptability, and encourage other companies - manufacturers, suppliers or technological players - to participate and contribute to this autonomous platform. Starting this year, a fleet of vehicles will test this technology on a large scale, under real traffic conditions. This is an important step ahead of the presentation of the BMW iNext in 2021, which will be the first fully autonomous vehicle of the BMW Group ”, states Klaus Fröhlich, member of the executive committee of BMW AG responsible for development.

“From an industrial point of view, we are already seeing substantial savings and an acceleration of development thanks to the sharing of costs and the pooling of resources involved in the creation of a complete autonomous platform. The vehicle-cloud system will offer constant and predictable behavior, and will comply with the most demanding safety standards, according to the Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. This is why this partnership is revolutionary. We have established a dedicated team, with clear and shared objectives, and a true culture of innovation, agility and responsibility. "

“Substantial progress has been made over the past six months in the design of this autonomous driving solution, both on the highway and in an urban environment. The solution was designed to promote its adaptability, and thus allow affiliate manufacturers to adapt it to their unique needs ”, states the co-founder, president and chief technology officer of Mobileye, Professor Amnon Shashua.

As part of this cooperation, the BMW Group will be responsible for the control and driving dynamics, the assessment of overall functional safety - including the implementation of a high-performance simulation engine -, the integration overall components, production of prototypes and, ultimately, adaptation of the platform through deployment partnerships.

Intel brings high-performance computing elements to this partnership, from the vehicle to the data center. The new Intel® GO ™ automated driving solutions integrate cutting-edge processor and FPGA technologies, and strike the perfect balance between performance and consumption while meeting the stringent requirements of the automotive industry in the field of temperature and of security. Within the vehicle, the Intel GO system offers an adaptable calculation and development platform for certain fundamental aspects such as sensor fusion, driving policies, environmental modeling, trajectory planning, or decision making . For data centers, Intel offers a wide range of technologies supporting Intel GO automated driving solutions, including Intel® Xeon® and Intel® Xeon® Phi ™ processors. Intel also offers a powerful deep learning and machine simulation and training infrastructure through its Intel® Nervana ™ platform for artificial intelligence.

Mobileye brings its high-performance EyeQ visual processor^®5, which provides advanced safety and ensures extremely low consumption. The EyeQ^®5 is responsible for processing and interpreting data from 360-degree visual sensors and location. The EyeQ^®5, combined with Intel's CPU and FPGA technologies, will be the central computing platform built into each autonomous vehicle.

Mobileye will continue its collaboration with the BMW Group to develop a sensor fusion solution capable of completely modeling the vehicle environment using information from visual sensors, radars and lidars. It will also make it possible to establish a driving model thanks to reinforcement learning algorithms, which will be used to provide the system with artificial intelligence able to adapt to the most complex driving situations.

Finally, to further boost the development of this autonomous platform, the partners plan to provide hardware samples and software updates in the coming years. The BMW iNEXT model, which will be introduced in 2021, will form the basis of the BMW Group's strategy in the area of ​​autonomous driving. This car will be followed by a wide range of automated models offered by all brands of the BMW Group.

To know more : www.bmw.fr