Paul Gluckman

The State Department removed certain “lower performing radars” from the U.S. munitions list, effective Friday, said that day's Federal Register. The radars are used in self-driving cars and in “detect and avoid systems for autonomous aerial systems,” it said. The radars and radar components will now be subject to the export administration regulations.

Walmart's latest pilot program with a self-driving vehicle company is with Palo Alto, California-based Gatik, blogged Tom Ward, Walmart U.S. senior vice president-digital operations. The retailer has been testing autonomous-vehicle use for customer deliveries and transporting goods between its locations, he said. With Gatik, it’s testing an autonomous vehicle to move customer orders on a 2-mile route between two stores in Bentonville, Arkansas, its home base, to learn more about the logistics of integrating autonomous vehicles into its online grocery ecosystem, said Ward.

Velodyne Lidar bought mapping and localization software and intellectual property assets from Mapper.ai., it said Tuesday. Velodyne will use the mapper technology to drive development of Vella software that works with its directional view Velarray lidar sensor, the company said. The solid-state lidar sensor, which can be embedded, fits behind a windshield as a component for advanced driver assistance systems, said the company. Mapper’s leadership and engineering teams will join Velodyne's Vella software development group, said Anand Gopalan, Velodyne chief technology officer.

Intel led a collaboration of 11 automotive and mobility industry players that published a framework for design, development, verification and validation of safe automated passenger vehicles (AVs). “Safety First for Automated Driving” combines expertise from global automakers, suppliers and technology providers to guide development of AVs that are “verifiably safe by design,” Intel said Tuesday. The framework is built on Intel’s responsibility sensitive safety (RSS) model, said to be a “technology-neutral” starting point for the industry to align on what it means for an AV to drive safely. “RSS formalizes human notions of commonsense driving into a set of mathematical formulas that are transparent and verifiable, providing a 'safety envelope' around an AV’s decision-making capabilities,” said the company. The paper has 12 guiding principles and “the steps necessary to realize them.”

Lyft expects about 10 Waymo self-driving vehicles to be cruising the streets of metropolitan Phoenix by the end of Q3 “that will serve thousands of Lyft passengers over time,” said Lyft President John Zimmer on a Q1 call Tuesday. Each will have a “safety driver,” he said. “This is the first time that Waymo is providing self-driving vehicles to a partner outside of their own service.” The partnership is one of “two pieces” of Lyft’s autonomous-vehicle strategy, said Zimmer. Its own “Level 5 group” puts Lyft in a “great position, given our platform, our access to data and an amazing talented team, to build our own self-driving components,” he said. “Our first-party system can benefit the existing business even before there’s autonomous vehicles” on the road through better mapping and “higher utilization and efficiency in the marketplace,” he said. “We are agnostic to where this technology comes from.” Waymo is a “phenomenal partner with leading AV technology,” but it “doesn’t affect the other relationships that we have,” he said.

The 5G Automotive Association urged the FCC to solicit comment on rule changes to allow cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) operations in the 5.9 GHz band. In a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-357, 5GAA said allowing such use would “pave the way for automobile manufacturers and other stakeholders to make American roadway travel safer, smarter, and more efficient through the use of 5G technology.” Noting Ford has committed to deploying C-V2X in new vehicle models sold in the U.S., and that the “Third Generation Partnership Project (‘3GPP’) adopted a work item description to ensure that C-V2X features are included in the next 5G standard,” the group asked the FCC to grant its waiver request to enable initial deployments (see 1902270041)

As the automotive industry moves toward electrification, automation and connectivity, embedded navigation with HD maps becomes increasingly important, Navigant Research reported Wednesday. Street-level road maps are insufficient for the upcoming mobility paradigm, it said: highly automated vehicles require detailed HD maps to enable “precise localization” so vehicles can navigate. Next-generation maps will be targeted more to electronic control systems running vehicles than to drivers, said analyst Sam Abuelsamid. Several manufacturers have begun using topographical information as an input to powertrain control, and others are using road contour information to manage speed in partially automated driving systems, he said.

Hyundai Mobis is developing “deep learning-based" image-recognition technology for identifying vehicles, pedestrians and geographical features of the road, it said at the Kintex Seoul Motor Show Sunday. It hopes to develop the technology by year-end, with a goal of mass-producing front camera sensors that support deep learning-based high-performance image recognition technology by 2022. The company also plans to apply deep learning-based image recognition technology to a 360-degree surround view monitor, enabling automatic emergency braking to prevent front and broadside collisions during low-speed driving.

A General Motors application to produce up to 2,500 autonomous vehicles yearly is advancing to the Federal Register for comment, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced Friday (see 1810040043). GM seeks a two-year waiver to build vehicles without steering wheels, foot pedals and other conventional automotive equipment. Nuro filed a separate application to build 2,500 automated delivery vehicles without requirements for rearview mirrors, a standard windshield and standard cameras for rear visibility.

The House Commerce Committee should take up the Self Drive Act, ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore.; Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio; and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., wrote Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Wednesday. The legislation passed the House by voice vote in 2018 (see 1901220034). A similar bill stalled in the Senate. Congress can “support life saving technology, create mobility benefits for many communities, and support U.S. jobs and innovation against growing foreign competition,” the three GOP lawmakers wrote.