Auto OEMs, Intel, Valeo Launch Driverless Tech at CES 2015

The Las Vegas Strip at night

No city on earth is more sensory-overwhelming than Las Vegas. If you are anywhere on or near the strip there is a constant barrage of lights, sounds and attractions that you’ll either find super exciting or terribly frightening (or perhaps a bit of both). However, this pales by comparison with the Las Vegas convention center during the Consumer Electronics Show.

A tiny part of the show floor at CES 2015

This year was no exception. In fact, it seemed bigger in all dimensions than previous shows. By far the biggest part of this expansion is related to automobiles and automobile technology. Not only were major automobile OEMs like Ford, Toyota, Mercedes and Audi/VW and tier-1 auto suppliers like Denso, Visteon and TRW out in full force, but technology companies like Qualcomm and Intel were touting their auto electronics as well.

Some of the headlines from the show include:

There were lots highlights of the show from a driverless technology perspective. Nokia subsidiary, Here was using NVDIA’s chips to show off its next-generation mapping displays. In the not-too-distant future, drivers will see full 3D renderings of the roads and buildings around them while cruising down the highways.

Here video game highlighting their displays. Steering is done just by turning your hands.

VW showed off its automatic parking and connectionless charging station technology. With a push of a button on a cell phone the car will automatically go in and out of the garage.

VW Trained Parking

Intel was displaying technology that tracked the driver to see if they were paying attention to the road. At the same time, the system was monitoring the road in front of the vehicle. If it detected a potential hazardous situation at a time when the driver wasn’t paying proper attention, a visual and audible alarm is sounded. The demonstration system highlighted in the display where the driver was actually looking.

Intel Driver Alert Control

One of the most impressive displays at the show was from Valeo. The first product is called InBlue, “the first smartphone and smartwatch application-compatible smart key.” This is another example of the growing Internet of Things (IoT). With InBlue, you can of course lock and unlock your car, but that is just the beginning. It also provides real-time diagnostics on car performance, and can help you locate your car with built-in mapping capability. One of the most impressive features was the ability to share a lock with a friend or colleague remotely. All this is done through your smartphone and Valeo’s cloud-based applications. There seems to be a lot of uses for this technology. On the personal side, you could loan your car to a friend for a few days or you could drop a car off at the airport and allow someone else to pick it up. Here, the “Locate Your Car” feature would be useful. On the commercial side, there are also numerous uses since these vehicles tend to be operated and shared to begin with. This technology could even be the basis for some micro-sharing applications. Valeo expects the InBlue technology to be available in the marketplace by 2016.

The second demonstration was Valeo’s Highly Automated Driving. Valeo and automotive engineering company IAV put together a NHTSA Level 2 (combination of two or more automated features). Using a combination of lidar, radar and camera-based sensors the system combined adaptive cruise control with automated lane-changing to give a fairly autonomous ride.

Valeo & IAV Highly Automated Driving Test Vehicle

A test drive followed through a major city road in Las Vegas. The technology demonstrated here was more geared toward highways, but time limitations and Las Vegas traffic prohibited a highway test. Lars, an IAV engineer, drove the route to Sarah Boulevard, a major city street with three or four lanes in each direction. It was a busy road with lots of entrances and exits to shopping areas.

Lars letting the system drive the car

There were a few instances where it was clear this was a prototype system, but generally the system ran smoothly, and it was fun to watch Lars take his hands off the wheel. Working with these technologies is what Lars does every day, and it was interesting to watch him as he both interacted with the other people in the car and kept an eye on the car driving itself. However, it does make you wonder–as vehicles with this type of technology are rolled out, will the everyday person, and not just the highly trained engineer, really be able to interact with others, or their phone, and keep an eye on what the car is doing at the same time? This could be a major challenge in the not-too-distant future.

The system indicating a lane change

Driverless Transportation recognizes Valeo as one of the leading companies in the driverless and automated space. They are one of the companies in the D20 Stock Index, and they continue to impress with the new technologies they roll out. The year 2015 is off to a great start for the world of driverless transportation.