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Is nVidia Going All-In On Autonomous Cars?
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Nvidia is applying all that it knows about deep learning to enable autonomous vehicles.
The GPU vendor has launched NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 which is an autonomous vehicle development platform powered by the 16nm FinFET-based Pascal GPU.
The GPU maker issued a version of DRIVE PX last year to its automotive partners including Audi, BMW, Daimler, Ford and dozens more. This newer version is equipped with two Tegra SOCs with ARM cores plus two discrete Pascal GPUs.
Nvidia said that the new platform is capable of 24 trillion deep learning operations per second ten times more than the last generation.
It can also offer an aggregate of 8 teraflops of single-precision performance which is a four-fold increase over the PX 1 and many times faster than using a slide rule or counting on your fingers.
The development platform includes the Caffe deep learning framework to run DNN models designed and trained on DIGITS, NVIDIA’s interactive deep learning training system.
Nivida wants to take humans out of the drivers’ seat to reduce the one million automotive-related fatalities each year.
Perception is the main issue and deep learning is able to achieve super-human perception capability. DRIVE PX 2 can process 12 video cameras, plus lidar, radar and ultrasonic sensors. This 360 degree assessment makes it possible to detect objects, identify them and their position relative to the car, and then calculate a safe and comfortable trajectory.
Courtesy-Fud
Nvidia Teams Up With Volvo For Self-Driving Car Computer
January 15, 2016 by admin
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Nvidia Corp. took the wraps off of a new, lunchbox-size super-computer for self-driving cars and announced that Volvo Car Group will be the new device’s first customer.
Volvo, of Sweden, is owned by China’s Geely Automotive Holdings.
Nvidia made the announcement at the beginning of the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Calls to Volvo’s spokesman in China were not immediately answered.
The new Drive PX 2, said company CEO Jen-Hsung Huang, has computing power equivalent to 150 MacBook Pro computers, and can deliver up to 24 trillion “deep learning” operations – allowing the computer to use artificial intelligence to program itself to recognize driving situations – per second.
Partnerships between automakers and Silicon Valley companies on self-driving technologies are taking center stage at this year’s show.
Also on Monday, General Motors Co. announced a $500 million investment in ride-sharing service Lyft.
Huang didn’t offer revenue projections for Drive PX 2, but automotive is the fastest-growing business segment for Nvidia, whose largest revenue source is video games.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/nvidia-teams-up-with-volvo-for-self-driving-car-computer.html
Can MB Challenge Tesla?
June 22, 2015 by admin
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On the heels of Tesla announcing a home and commercial battery product line, Mercedes-Benz unveiled its own brand of energy storage products for those with solar systems to store surplus power.
The Mercedes-Benz energy storage plants for private use are available for order now and are expected to ship in September.
The batteries were first developed for cars, but Mercedes-Benz said the energy storage units “meet the very highest safety and quality standards” for home use.
Up to eight battery modules with an energy capacity of 2.5 kWh can be combined into an energy storage plant with a capacity of 20 kWh.
“Households with their own photovoltaic systems can thus buffer surplus solar power virtually free of any losses,” the carmaker said in a statement.
What wasn’t announced by Mercedes-Benz was information about the size of or pricing for the new batteries.
In May, Tesla announced its Powerwall batteries for home use and its Powerpack batteries for commercial use. Today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced his company would double the power output of the Powerwall batteries but keep their prices the same.
Tesla’s Powerwall batteries will go from having a two-kilowatt (kW) steady power output and 3.3kW peak output to a 5kW steady output and 7kW peak output, Musk said. The price of the batteries will remain the same: $3,000 for the 7kW/hour (KWh) daily cycle version and $3,500 for the 10kWh backup UPS version. Total installation cost will run around $4,000, according to Musk.
Up to nine Powerwall battery units can be daisy-chained together on a wall to provide up to 90kWh of power.
The average U.S. household uses about 20 kWh to 25 kWh of power every day, according to GTM Research.
Tesla Energy’s new commercial-grade battery is called the Powerpack, and will sell in 100kWh modules for $25,000 each. Musk said the Powerpack can scale infinitely, even powering factories and small cities.
Mercedes-Benz’s batteries, being produced by subsidiary Deutsche Accumotive, are its first industrial-scale lithium-ion units, and they’ve already been tested “on the grid,” the company said.
Panasonic Appears To Be On The Hunt
April 8, 2015 by admin
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Japanese electronics giant Panasonic Corp said it is gearing up to spend 1 trillion yen ($8.4 billion) on acquisitions over the next four years, bolstered by a stronger profit outlook for its automotive and housing technology businesses.
Chief Executive Kazuhiro Tsuga said at a briefing on Thursday that Panasonic doesn’t have specific acquisition targets in mind for now. But he said the firm will spend around 200 billion yen on M&A in the fiscal year that kicks off in April alone, and pledged to improve on Panasonic’s patchy track record on big deals.
“With strategic investments, if there’s an opportunity to accelerate growth, you need funds. That’s the idea behind the 1 trillion yen figure,” he said. Tsuga has spearheaded a radical restructuring at the Osaka-based company that has made it one of the strongest turnaround stories in Japan’s embattled technology sector.
Tsuga previously told Reuters that company was interested in M&A deals in the European white goods market, a sector where Panasonic has comparatively low brand recognition.
The firm said on Thursday it’s targeting operating profit of 430 billion yen in the next fiscal year, up nearly 25 percent from the 350 billion yen it expects for the year ending March 31.
Panasonic’s earnings have been bolstered by moving faster than peers like Sony Corp and Sharp Corp to overhaul business models squeezed by competition from cheaper Asian rivals and caught flat-footed in a smartphone race led by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics. Out has gone reliance on mass consumer goods like TVs and smartphones, and in has come a focus on areas like automotive technology and energy-efficient home appliances.
Tsuga also sought to ease concerns that an expensive acquisition could set back its finances, which took years to recover from the deal agreed in 2008 to buy cross-town rival Sanyo for a sum equal to about $9 billion at the time.