Porsche will partner with Israeli tech company Mobileye to develop advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technologies in future models.
SuperVision will allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel while continuing to monitor their surroundings, depending on road type and local regulations.
Vehicles equipped with the system will be able to autonomously change lanes and overtake slower vehicles on multi-lane roads. The system will also allow the car to autonomously follow predetermined navigation routes selected by the driver.
SuperVision is underpinned by the Mobileye Eye Q6 High Systems-on-a-Chip (SoC), and works by monitoring the environment with eleven cameras and radar fusion perception to combine camera signals.
Mobileye has confirmed the SuperVision technology to be implemented in Porsche vehicles will also be available as a solution to other brands under the Volkswagen Group umbrella.
In particular, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles will utilise Mobileye’s partnership to develop technology for its autonomous vehicle fleets.
According to Porsche, the element of the SuperVision system that monitors driver attention, as well as its integration into the user interface, will be customised in-house.
Michael Steiner, head of development at the Volkswagen Group, believes Porsche drivers are not necessarily interested in autonomous driving, but instead will enjoy the partial automation systems like Mobileye SuperVision will provide.
“There are certain aspects of partially automated driving that we are interested in, for example by not having to keep their hands on the wheel the entire time in traffic jams,” said Mr Steiner.
Mobileye, acquired by Intel in 2017, develops a range of autonomous driving technologies and went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange last year with an initial valuation of more than US$20 billion (AU$29.6 billion).
The company already has a working partnership with Cariad, Volkswagen’s software division, and is responsible for the Travel Assist system in Volkswagen products.
Mobileye’s technical strategy combines several arms of ADAS technology including cameras, LiDAR, and software-defined radars with crowdsourced mapping techniques to safely develop autonomous driving technology.
“We are driven by the goal of using technological innovations to improve the driving experience… We developed the SuperVision system to enhance safety through the synergetic interaction of the driver and the vehicle,” says Mobileye CEO, Prof. Amnon Shashua.
Only six months ago, Volkswagen-backed autonomous driving startup Argo AI closed its doors as executives believed autonomous vehicles at scale were too far off from being profitable.
However, Volkswagen made it clear that it will continue to invest in the development of Level 3 autonomous driving technology.
The Volkswagen Group has existing relationships with Bosch, Qualcomm, and Horizon Robotics to develop autonomous driving technology.
The Volkswagen Group also expects customers in 2025 will be able to use ride-sharing service MOIA to book an autonomous ID. Buzz in Hamburg in 2025.
