French technology company Kalray is set to unveil its new artificial intelligence (AI) and Acceleration of Perception capabilities for autonomous vehicles (AVs) based on Baidu’s Apollo open software platform.

Additionally, the company will demonstrate its Massively Parallel Processor Array (MPPA) architecture using the platform at the AutoSens 2018 conference, in Brussels, Belgium, from 17-20 September.

At present, autonomous vehicle prototypes use 50-100 sensors, including technologies such as GPS / INS, radar, lidar and a number of cameras that provide intelligent data required to help the vehicle ‘see’ its location relative to other objects.

These sensors help recognise a number of variables, including GPS location, lane markings, road signs, pedestrians, and other vehicles.

“Apollo offers an open, reliable and secure software platform for its partners to develop their own autonomous driving systems using on-vehicle and hardware platforms.”

The autonomous vehicle industry is tasked with processing the large streams generated by these standalone sensors, analysing the data in real time, and pooling the information so that the vehicle correctly ‘perceives’ and understands its complete 360° environment.

To deal with this challenge, Kalray has designed its MPPA intelligent processor architecture.

It is capable of executing complex neural network applications at many processes per second to accomplish the Acceleration of Perception for self-driving vehicles.

Kalray Embedded business unit vice-president Stéphane Cordova said: “We are very pleased to contribute to the Baidu Apollo ecosystem, and are proud to demonstrate our breakthrough new Acceleration of Perception capability at AutoSens 2018.

“Our latest MPPA processors perfectly meet the performance demands of today’s advanced AI and autonomous vehicle applications, marking an important milestone for Kalray.”

The Apollo project was established by Chinese technology giant Baidu. It focuses on mobility and in particular automotive industry and autonomous driving field.

Apollo offers an open, reliable and secure software platform for its partners to develop their own autonomous driving systems using in-vehicle and hardware platforms.