Voyage partners with FCA to deliver fully driverless cars

13 May 2020 | David Young

Building a self-driving car requires a deep connection between software and hardware, and both pieces need to be considered in tandem.

Voyage partners with FCA to deliver fully driverless cars

This US partnership connects Voyage's self-driving technology with FCA's deep expertise in building vehicles to launch truly driverless transportation services.

We have integrated our self-driving technology into a purpose-built Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, developed specifically by FCA for the integration of automated technology.

A Voyage Auto spokesman reports, 'We have integrated our self-driving technology into a purpose-built Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, developed specifically by FCA for the integration of automated technology.'

Building a self-driving car requires a deep connection between software and hardware, and both pieces need to be considered in tandem. This partnership connects Voyage's self-driving technology with FCA's deep expertise in building vehicles to launch truly driverless transportation services. As part of this collaboration, Voyage and FCA will jointly adapt and validate the connections between the self-driving software, sensors, and embedded systems.

Most discussion about self-driving technology revolves around the algorithms that drive the car, such as computer vision, prediction, planning, and control. These algorithms are the tip of the iceberg, where the mostly unseen mass is the effort to engineer a safety-critical system.

In building a self-driving car, these problems cannot be considered in isolation. The software needs to know the health of the vehicle-level systems, the ones interfacing with and controlling the steering, accelerating, and braking of the vehicle. If a failure occurs, our software needs to react. If an actuator is compromised, the software needs to adapt and change its plan. On the other hand, if issues are experienced, mitigation strategies need to be embedded in the vehicle-level control interfaces to catch and safely respond.

These systems are truly intertwined and must be adapted in unison to build a self-driving car that meets our high safety standards.

This new partnership delivers on AV-specific design requirements, such as safety-critical steering and braking systems, as well as fail-safe power systems to run the sensors and software.

Source: Voyage Auto