Intel subsidiary, Mobileye, the Israeli company that specializes in vision-systems for autonomous vehicles, is collaborating with self-driving delivery startup Udelv to launch a full-scale, fully driverless delivery service starting in 2023.
Deliveries will be made using a cabin-less vehicle called The Transporter. While manufacturing plans are still being developed, Mobileye and Udelv say they will produce 35,000 Transporters by 2028.
“This is a real commercial deployment, that will fully integrate our self-driving system for commercial use for automated goods delivery” said Jack Weast, vice president of automated vehicle standards at Mobileye.
Mobileye’s self-driving system features a sensor suite of 13 cameras, three long-range LiDARs, six short-range LiDARs, and six radar. It also includes the company’s EyeQ system-on-a-chip and a data crowdsourcing program called the Road Experience Management, or REM, which uses real-time data from Mobileye-equipped vehicles to build out a global 3D map.
The company is also testing autonomous vehicles in a variety of cities around the world for the eventual launch of a robotaxi service and has said it would bring its technology to personally owned consumer vehicles by 2025 as well.
“The design of our self-driving systems is based on the concept of true redundancy,” Weast said. “In other approaches you need to have radar, LIDAR, and camera operating in perfect unison, but we have independent subsystems and if one is unable to properly detect an object, another will.”
Udelv currently uses retrofitted cargo vans to make its deliveries, but starting in 2023, it will roll out the Transporters using a modular electric platform, as part of its deal with Mobileye.
The Transporter will be fully autonomous but teleoperation capabilities will allow a remote operator to take control, meaning says Weast, that it won’t be geofenced or limited in where it operates.
