Automotive supplier Bosch is joining with NVIDIA to develop artificial intelligence self-driving systems for mass market cars. NVIDIA and Bosch are developing an AI self-driving car computer built on NVIDIA’s deep learning software and hardware that enables vehicles to be trained on the complexities of driving, operated autonomously and updated over the air with new features and capabilities.
Bosch CEO Dr. Volkmar Denner unveiled the collaboration during his keynote address at Bosch Connected World, in Berlin, at Bosch Group’s annual Internet of Things conference.
The Bosch AI car computer system will be based on NVIDIA DRIVE PX technology with Xavier, the upcoming AI car superchip, a single-chip processor designed to achieve level-4 autonomous driving. The high level of performance of Xavier is necessary to handle the massive amount of computation required for the tasks self-driving vehicles must perform. These include running deep neural nets to sense surroundings, understanding the 3D environment, localizing themselves on an HD map, predicting the behavior and position of other objects, as well as computing car dynamics and a safe path forward.
NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 is the open AI car computing platform that enables automakers and their suppliers to accelerate production of automated and autonomous vehicles. It scales from a palm-sized, energy efficient module for AutoCruise capabilities, to a powerful AI supercomputer capable of autonomous driving.
DRIVE PX 2 can understand in real-time what’s happening around the vehicle, precisely locate itself on an HD map, and plan a safe path forward. It’s the world’s most advanced self-driving car platform—combining deep learning, sensor fusion, and surround vision to change the driving experience.
The scalable architecture is available in a variety of configurations. These range from one passively cooled mobile processor operating at 10 watts, to a multi-chip configuration with two mobile processors and two discrete GPUs delivering 24 trillion deep learning operations per second. Multiple DRIVE PX 2 platforms can be used in parallel to enable fully autonomous driving.
The single-processor configuration of DRIVE PX 2 for AutoCruise functions —which include highway automated driving and HD mapping—consumes around 10 watts of power. It also enables vehicles to use deep neural networks to process data from multiple cameras and sensors.
“Self-driving cars is a challenge that can finally be solved with recent breakthroughs in deep learning and artificial intelligence,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, founder and CEO, NVIDIA. “Using DRIVE PX AI car computer, Bosch will build automotive-grade systems for the mass production of autonomous cars. Together we will realize a future where autonomous vehicles make mobility safe and accessible to all.” “Automated driving makes roads safer, and artificial intelligence is the key to making that happen,” said Denner. “We are making the car smart.”
