With these cars, Apple tests and collects data for autonomous driving

Last week, we wrote about how things currently look with the so-called Titan Project, i.e. Apple's project, from which a fully autonomous car was originally supposed to emerge. In addition, it should have been produced entirely by Apple, without the help of another manufacturer. If you have read our article, you know that there will be no such vehicle in the near future, because no one is working on it now. If you haven't read the article, the main information is that the entire project has been restructured and is now focused on the development of the software solution itself, which should be applied to compatible vehicles in general. And it was images of such test cars that appeared on the web over the weekend.

Apple uses five SUVs from Lexus (specifically, the RX450h models, model year 2016), on which it tests its systems for autonomous driving, machine learning and camera systems. The original versions of the vehicles were easy to recognize because they had a metal frame on the hood, on which all the tested sensors were attached (photo 1). Readers of the Macrumors server, however, managed to capture a new version of the car (2nd photo), the sensors of which have been significantly redesigned and there are significantly more of them on the vehicle. The car was photographed near Apple's offices in Sunnyvale, California.

The so-called LIDAR system (Laser Imaging Radar, Czech wiki) should be located on the roof of the car <a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1932/8043/files/200721_ODSTOUPENI_BEZ_UDANI_DUVODU__EN.pdf?v=1595428404" data-gt-href-en="https://en.notsofunnyany.com/">here</a>), which is used here primarily for the mapping of roads and all related information. This information subsequently serves as a basis for further processing in the creation of algorithms for assisted/autonomous driving.

It is with the help of the data obtained in this way that Apple tries to come up with its own solution that will compete with other companies that are developing something very similar in the same industry. And that there are not a few of them. Autonomous driving has been a hot topic not only in Silicon Valley for the past few months. It will be very interesting to see what direction Apple takes in this sector. If we ever see official licensing of this solution, similar to how Apple CarPlay appears in some cars today, for example.

Source: 9to5mac

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