In the panel that took place as part of the CES exhibition, the participants, including the American Secretary of Transportation and the CEO of the Israeli Mobileye, outlined the future of the automobile industry moving towards an electric, connected and autonomous car
In the panel that took place as part of the CES exhibition, the participants, including the American Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and the CEO of the Israeli Mobileye Prof. Amnon Shashua, outlined the future of the car moving towards an electric, connected and autonomous car. The panel was attended by Dr. Volkamer Denner, CEO of Bosch, which produces, among other things, urban infrastructure systems; and Steven Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm; The panel was moderated by Prof. Kenneth Larson, director of Changing Places.
The moderator of the panel, Larson, said that a change in the definition of the car and the transportation infrastructure is not just a gradual change, but a real change in the definition of the concept of a city. The impressive cities of the Middle Ages in Europe arose from a collection of villages, each of which was characterized by a width that could be crossed on foot in 20 minutes. All this changed around 1880 with the development of railways and trams. This change allowed cities to spread along the railroad tracks. Things changed once again in the 90s with the invention of the automobile that allowed migration from anywhere to anywhere, and thus cities spread everywhere. At first the expansion was over a large distance with sparse construction, as for example in Los Angeles, and then expansion over a huge space while building high (Shanghai). The result is huge traffic jams. Today, XNUMX% of population growth occurs in cities, which adds challenges but also makes it possible to find central solutions that will cover most of the population.
CEO of Bosch Denner added that "the future of the car is moving towards an electric, connected and autonomous car. Already today there are cars that park themselves. The vehicle will become a real personal assistant. You have to plan not only the transportation, but everything around it. We call it Beyond Mobility. We are in an age where everything is becoming smart. An example from another field - today many municipalities are replacing the street lighting with LED systems in order to save energy. Why would we actually replace one stupid bulb with another stupid bulb, smart bulbs will be able to detect when people are in the area so as not to waste electricity. The bulbs can also be used as local sensors for the municipality."
Mollenkopf said that "everything will be connected, and this will change life completely. This requires a lot of coordination, it is a very big challenge. There is one opportunity in the life of a city to modernize, and it is important that this process be carried out in the best way."
Mobileye will install the Shield Plus system to prevent accidents between buses and pedestrians and cyclists on all buses in the city that will win the Smart Cities Challenge competition. This was announced by the American Minister of Transportation, Anthony Foxx in a panel that dealt with the challenges of urban transportation in the future.
"I decided to take an example from Google's XPRIZE" said Fox. "And open the Cites Transportation Challenge, in which hundreds of cities across the United States compete for a special budget worth 40 million dollars, in raising ideas on how to make transportation in their city smarter and safer." The US Federal Department of Transportation has also initiated the development of vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems, which it says has been underway for a year.
Fox said that "we are in a time when there are many improvements in transportation technology that provide many opportunities to take advantage of it. The local authorities should think about how to use them to improve transportation in the cities. The purpose of the Smart Cities Challenge competition is to get the mayors to find ideas on how to optimize transportation, reduce global warming and increase its safety. The winning city will receive a special budget of 40 million dollars intended for it to carry out the plan. The CEO of Bush offered to add another 10 million dollars, and today I am happy to announce that Mobilya announced that it will install the Shield Plus systems on all the buses in the winning city.
600 thousand dead
Over 600 people are killed as pedestrians, cyclists and other road users in road accidents every year around the world. Many of the accidents are caused between large vehicles and pedestrians or cyclists, especially buses in city centers. Therefore, Mobileye developed the Shield Plus system, which covers the bus driver's blind spots with smart cameras. The system warns if there is a person that the bus may endanger, and allows the driver to stop the vehicle and prevent the accident. In addition, the system reports to the cloud through real-time Big Data analysis, and alerts those places where near-accidents occur and treat them on the spot.
Later, the panelists discussed the challenge of autonomous cars. According to the facilitator, the entire thought about owning a car may change, perhaps all transportation will be Uber-style with autonomous machines that will bring residents from place to place within the city - for example, from the public transportation stations to the desired address within the city. Shashua estimated that in the era of autonomous cars, the number of accidents will be reduced by orders of magnitude, less than one percent than today. "It will not reset completely because there will always be human errors, also on the part of pedestrians, and in particular when the replacement process will be long."
CEO of Qualcomm: "We will apply what we learned from smartphones to cars"
In the automotive sector, Qualcomm announced at the exhibition two new Snapdragon chips - 820A and 820Am - and a collaboration with Audi. The new chips have 64-bit cores and one of the capabilities they have is to receive signals from the GPS systems of the Russian Glones, the European Galileo and the Chinese Baidu. In the Russian system the feature is already active while in the European and Chinese it is not yet.
In the demonstration held at the press conference, it seems that this is a very powerful processor, because it allows, for example, to see a XNUMXD view of the area you are traveling to from any angle you want. In addition, the system supports two screens in the back seat that can be used, for example, one for entertainment (especially important when traveling with children) and the other for information on the road.
The chips can recognize different types of lane markings and understand the road signs with the help of machine learning or deep learning. They contain LTE connectivity at speeds of up to 600 megabits per second and can be updated remotely. Therefore, when the fifth cellular generation arrives, the system will be updated without having to go to an installer or a garage.
Smartphone, drones and robots
Another product that Qualcomm announced yesterday in Las Vegas is the first device based on the long-awaited Snapdragon 820 chip. This is a MAX Pro smartphone from a Chinese manufacturer called LeTV. It is the largest company in the field of entertainment electronics in China, and it produces a variety of devices - from Internet TVs to electric cars.
The new phone contains a fingerprint recognition system using ultrasound. The innovation is that you don't have to leave the button exposed and you can place the fingerprint ID anywhere on the device. It can also be used with a wet or even oiled finger. According to Mollenkopf, 80 such devices are under development.
Qualcomm also announced its intention to bring Snapdragon performance to drones and robots. In order to be successful in the field of drones, it is necessary to arrive at a small and light technology, which is very similar to the one required in the smartphone market. Qualcomm, according to Mollenkopf, is ready for this.
Wearable computing and the Internet of Things
The last areas Mollenkopf surveyed were wearable computing and the Internet of Things. Qualcomm has announced several chips for smart city applications, for example the 9607 LTE chip, which can survive for 10 years using two AA batteries. Another chip, the CSR102X Bluetooth SOC, can stream HD quality audio to headphones or speakers.
Qualcomm stated that more than 65 commercial wearable devices based on its technology are already on the market and 50 more are on the way.
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Einat
I think this is one of the main motivators in the development of this technology
Autonomous cars that will not belong to a private person but will simply drive him, and then another person and so on, like a taxi
Which will, in theory, minimize the number of people who own a private car and thus indeed a lot of space will be freed up.
I hope that the designers of the automatic cars will be able to introduce environmental considerations into the vehicles,
That way, many parking lots and roads will be freed up and it will be possible to return some urban nature and land to the environment in their place.