Autonomous driving has caught the imagination of China as tech companies, EV makers and traditional automakers rush to invest in the market.
During the ongoing technology forum NXPFTF Americas 2016, which started on Monday, the organizer, Dutch-based NXP Semiconductors has been demonstrating a brand new autonomous vehicle platform powered by its central computing engine, BlueBox.
In the open autonomous vehicles systems, multiple streams of sensor data are routed to the BlueBox engine, where they are fused to create a complete 360 degree world model around the vehicle, and by introducing BlueBox, the company has rolled out a complete portfolio for self-driving robots.
According to the company, this functionality greatly improves car safety by both managing and preventing emergency situations.
Unlike closed systems focused only on vision or other single-sensor data streams, BlueBox is an open-platform, Linux-based solution programmable in linear C language that automotive manufacturers can easily customize to their needs for optimal product differentiation.
"BlueBox and its connected secure smart solutions also incorporate the embedded intelligence and machine learning required for complete situational assessments, supporting advanced classification tasks, object detection, localization, mapping and vehicle driving decisions," said the company.
"We are optimistic about the opportunities for automobile growth in China as the expansion of the middle class in the country has created the need for transportation and vehicles," Rick Clemmer, president and CEO of NXP told China Daily during the event. "The key is going to be how we can facilitate handling the increased number of cars with the same infrastructure that is associated with it."
According to Clemmer, NXP aims to demonstrate some of the smart city technologies to China to see how they can be deployed to relieve traffic congestion given the increasing number of cars.
Currently the product has been tested and is already available to customers at four of the world's top five automobile makers.
NXP has closed a $11.8 billion deal to purchase Austin-based automotive microprocessors Freescale, and the combination has helped NXP displace Japan's Renesas as the world's largest vehicle chipmaker.
The company is also a world leader in advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) processors, having shipped more than 30 million ADAS processors worldwide to date. Eight of the world's top 10 largest carmakers use ADAS processors from NXP.
