Japanese automotive manufacturer Toyota (TMC) is set to form a new JPY300bn ($2.84bn) company Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development (TRI-AD) to expedite the development of automated driving solutions.

In this regard, the company has concluded a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Aisin Seiki and Denso Corporation (Denso) to jointly develop fully integrated, production-quality software for automated driving.

The new company is expected to employ 1,000 people through external recruitment and transfer of staff from associated companies and units.

TRI-AD would be led by Toyota Research Institute (TRI) chief technology officer Dr James Kuffner, as its CEO.

Dr Kuffner said: “Building production-quality software is a critical success factor for Toyota’s automated driving programme.

“Building production-quality software is a critical success factor for Toyota’s automated driving programme.”

“This company’s mission is to accelerate software development in a more effective and disruptive way, by augmenting the Toyota Group’s capability through the hiring of world-class software engineers.”

In 2016, Toyoto established TRI in North America to carry out research in artificial intelligence, automated driving and robotics.

To further facilitate the development of self-driving research, the company formed TRI-AD.

The new company aims to develop a software pipeline from research-to-commercialisation, coordinate with TRI to advance research results to product development and boost collaboration within the Toyota Group in the areas of research and advanced development.

TMC Fellow, TRI CEO and new TRI-AD Board of Directors chairman Dr Gill Pratt said: “Toyota is known for the quality and efficiency of the Toyota Production System (TPS).

“I have no doubt that we can translate the fundamental ideas of TPS from the production of hardware to the production of software, and dramatically enhance Toyota’s software capabilities.”