As part of its efforts to establish automated driving technologies and work towards a collision-free society, Honda R&D Co, an arm of Honda Motor Co, has signed a five-year joint research and development contract with Chinese IT firm SenseTime Group.
SenseTime is highly regarded on a global basis as a company that excels in image recognition technologies, especially recognition of moving objects, powered by deep learning technology, one of the most advanced AI technologies.
In this joint R&D drive, combining SenseTime’s moving object recognition technologies with Honda’s AI algorithms for scene understanding, risk prediction and action planning, the two companies will develop highly-sophisticated automated driving technologies, which will enable complex automated driving in urban areas.
Moreover, this joint R&D will not be limited to automated driving, as the two companies plan to expand the joint activities into the area of robotics.
The AI algorithms to be applied for automated driving systems will estimate the driving environment and the behaviours and intentions of pedestrians and vehicles. It will also predict the future positions based on the results and will decide on the actions by the vehicle such as stopping, starting and avoiding.