Joint Development
The Hyundai Motor Group will launch a joint project with Aurora, an autonomous driving solution developer in the US to develop autonomous vehicle technology.
Yang Woong-cheol, vice chairman of research and development at Hyundai Motor and Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora will announce the plan at CES 2018, the world's largest consumer electronics exhibition in Las Vegas on January 8 (local time).
Hyundai Motor Group and Aurora decided to join forces to realize and commercialize Level 4 autonomous driving technology (based on the Society of Automotive Engineers) by 2021. Level 4 autonomous driving means that a car runs without a driver’s intervention.
Aurora is a group of autonomous driving technology pioneers. The company made headlines as Chris Urmson, a former general manager of Google's autonomous navigation technology, and Sterling Anderson, a former leader of Tesla's autopilot division and Drew Bagnell, a cognitive technology development specialist founded the company. In particular, Aurora is recognized as having world-class technology in the development of autonomous navigation software solutions and back-end solutions that exchange information through sensors, controllers, and cloud systems.
First of all, the two companies are planning to select the best 'Smart City' to test autonomous driving technology. Smart City is a technology-driven city where the entire city is loaded with internet of things (IoT) technology to enable overall operational efficiency and intelligence. All roads in the city have vehicle-to-object (V2X) infrastructure in which cars and roads are interconnected, enabling a demonstration of a fully autonomous driving system.
The Hyundai Motor Group-Aurora Project will go in all directions in the hardware and software that are the two main pillars for autonomous driving technology. Both companies will also share various data and control technologies for autonomous driving and discuss the development of integrated autonomous navigation solutions. In the project, Hyundai's next-generation hydrogen electric vehicle will be used as a test vehicle.
Starting next month, the Hyundai Motor Group will demonstrate its next-generation hydrogen electric vehicle on Korean highways and on-road roads by loading fourth level self-running technology into the vehicle.
Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors already obtained a license to operate autonomous drives of a hydrogen model of Tucson and the Soul EV from Nevada in the US in 2015 and another license for the Ioniq last year. In March of last year, they obtained permission for an autonomous driving test for the first time in Korea.
In the future, the Hyundai Motor Group is planning to expand its global cooperation system by seeking companies with the best technology in autonomous driving.