Computer Vision News - April 2019

Shmulik Shpiro is RSIP Vision’s EVP Global Business Development & Strategy. Shmulik visited this year’s ADAS SENSORS show in Detroit. Here is what he found out regarding the autonomous driving landscape and the Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) field as a whole. Among the many things which I have seen at the show, there was a very interesting mix of exhibiting vendors: first, the famous tier-1 and tier-2 manufacturers; second, some smaller and younger companies, among which were quite a few startups presenting cutting edge technologies around automotive sensors, many of them working in LiDAR and advanced cameras or innovative lenses; third (perhaps the most remarkable part), there were service providers, service centers and even car dealers. All this field is going to change with gigantic step. How each segment of the market will be impacted? Everyone wants to have a part in shaping the new landscape. All of this was surprising and exciting! One of the presenters was a service center for replacing glasses and windshields and they talked for almost half an hour about the challenge of recalibrating the sensors after a glass replacement! How do you make sure that the sensors are still working after that? Even the most sophisticated and expensive sensors might have a tough time working with the new car geometry. More generally, how do you make sure that all ADAS features keep working after even a small accident? The last few years we have seen huge resources being invested in this field: there are more than 70 companies developing LiDAR technologies and an almost infinite number of companies working on sensors in general. All this necessarily means that something big is happening. Even if only a share of these companies is going to stay in business and succeed, the movement which is going on is grandiose! Another thing which I want to point out is: what kind of sensors are we going to use? What capabilities will they have? How will we consolidate these sensors? In fact, the number of sensors must be finite, since all of them need electricity in order to function, they have a cost and they need to be maintained. At ADAS SENSORS 2019 we could see this consolidation going on. Probably it’s not for tomorrow and even not for next year, but I bet that in a couple of years we’ll see the landscape considerably changing. 28 ADAS SENSORS 2019… Computer Vision News by Shmulik Shpiro Event Calmcar Demo Car, presenting cutting edge AI capabilities, embedded on different kind of sensors