Intel's Mobileye Subsidiary Tests Autonomous Vehicles In New York

Mobileye launched its first test fleet in Jerusalem in 2018 . (photo: mobileye)

JAKARTA - Intel's subsidiary, Mobileye, is expanding its autonomous vehicle trial program in New York. After Detroit, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo. This is a strategy for developing and implementing the technology.

Mobileye launched its first test fleet in Jerusalem in 2018 and added one in Munich in 2020. The 40-minute video shown during the test announcement shows one of the vehicles equipped with a self-driving system navigating the streets of New York.

“If we want to build something that will thrive, we need to be able to drive in challenging places and almost everywhere,” said Mobileye president and CEO Amnon Shashua as quoted by TechCrunch, Tuesday 27 July.

The vehicle, which began testing in New York City last month, is driven autonomously and uses only cameras. The vehicle is equipped with eight remote cameras and four parking cameras powered by a fifth-generation system on a chip called EyeQ5.

The company has also developed another subsystem with lidar and radar, but no camera, which can also drive autonomously. The two sensor and software subsystems will be combined and integrated to provide robotaxi redundancy.

New York City has been a target for Shashua for more than six months. He first mentioned wanting to test on public roads in New York during the virtual CES 2021 tech trade show in January with a warning that the company needed to receive regulatory approval.

Now, Mobileye is licensed, and now the company is the only one allowed to test AV in the state and city. Mobileye technology maps nearly 8 million kilometers per day globally, including in New York City.

According to Shashua, the strategy will enable the company to efficiently launch and operate commercial robotaxi services and bring the technology to consumer passenger vehicles by 2025.

Mobileye's Footsteps in the Automotive World

Perhaps, Mobileye is best known for supplying automakers with computer vision technology that supports sophisticated driver assistance systems. It is a business that generates sales of nearly 967 million US dollars for the company. Currently, 88 million vehicles on the road use Mobileye's computer vision technology.

Not only that, Mobileye has also developed automated vehicle technology. Its full self-driving stack includes a redundant sensing subsystem based on camera, radar and lidar technology combined with a REM mapping system and a rule-based Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS) driving policy.

Mobileye's REM mapping system collects data by leveraging consumer and fleet vehicles equipped with so-called EyeQ4, or fourth-generation systems on a chip, to build high-definition maps that can be used to support ADAS and autonomous driving systems.

The data is not video or images but compressed text that collects at about 10 kilobits per kilometer. Mobileye has agreements with six OEMs, including BMW, Nissan and Volkswagen, to collect that data on vehicles equipped with the EyeQ4 chip, which is used to power advanced driver assistance systems. On fleet vehicles, Mobileye collects data from the after-sales products it sells to commercial operators.