ZF has announced a partnership with computing giant NVIDIA to develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems suitable for trucks as well as passenger vehicles.
Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month, the collaboration between ZF and NVIDIA will be focussed on technology for automated highway driving and known as the ZF ProAI platform
The technology will allow vehicles to better understand their environment by using deep learning to process sensor and camera data.
The two companies are also working together to develop more advanced technologies for autonomous driving
“With NVIDIA, we are bringing the supercomputing power required for artificial intelligence into cars and commercial vehicles,” said ZF CEO Dr. Stefan Sommer.
“ZF is enabling vehicles to see, think and act. NVIDIA’s AI platform lets us take a giant leap forward when it comes to enabling cars, trucks or forklifts to think.”
ZF ProAI will use the NVIDIA Drive PX 2 AI computing platform to process inputs from multiple cameras, lidar, radar and ultrasonic sensors.
It will be able to determine in real-time what is happening around the vehicle and then locate itself on a map in order to plan a safe path forward.
According to head of advanced engineering at ZF, Torsten Gollewski, AI technology will is a major growth area for the brand.
“In addition to autonomous cars, we see may opportunities to bring this technology to commercial vehicles and other industrial applications,” Gollewski said.
“AI-capable software and deep learning will become more prevalent in many AI industries in the coming years,” he added.