US-based automotive embedded electronics developer Danlaw and robotics specialist NextDroid have joined forces to expand advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicle (AV) development and validation activities.
The companies note that rapid advancement and complexity of ADAS and AV features require data from numerous vehicle sensors, and existing validation methods tend to be expensive, not scalable and centered around final validation. The partnership, the say, aims to provide the tools and domain knowledge to successfully change the ADAS validation mindset by offering a proven ground truth platform for use throughout feature development and validation.
Leveraging Danlaw’s automotive engineering and connected vehicle experience and the NextDroid Veritas ground truth platform the collaboration aims to provide automotive OEMs and their Tier 1 suppliers with a turnkey ADAS and AV verification and validation capability. The intent is for the solution to be quickly transferable from vehicle to vehicle and capable of validating a wide range of ADAS features, components and SW releases. Both companies believe that the use of this platform enables customers to bring features to market with greater safety, in less time and much more cost-effectively than legacy methods.
“NextDroid’s Veritas platform will leverage Danlaw’s understanding of modern automotive OEMs’ architectures to provide support and integration services across advanced heterogeneous sensors,” noted Thierry Rolina, senior account manager at Danlaw.
The NextDroid Veritas ground truth platform produces information needed by car makers to validate ADAS and AV components, features and vehicle behavior in the real world. This information comes from building a highly detailed, precise ground truth model of the world, against which data from the ADAS/AV system is compared and evaluated using customer-defined criteria.
“Validation of ADAS and AV systems can be a huge drain on scarce, highly skilled engineering resources that are also needed to develop customer features. Danlaw’s deep vehicle and customer knowledge combined with NextDroid’s end-to-end ground truthing, datalogging and data analysis give users a turnkey solution: an industry-leading validation platform with minimal drain on critical engineering resources,” summarized Martin Baker, a consultant at NextDroid.