Hyundai Mobis Teams up with Yandex of Russia
Hyundai Mobis announced on March 20 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Yandex, Russia's largest internet search engine provider, for joint development of a deep learning-based autonomous driving platform at its ICT Research Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi-do.
Hyundai Mobis and Yandex will jointly develop a fully autonomous driving platform based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology to provide unmanned mobility services such as robot taxi to the global market. They plan to manufacture an autonomous navigation platform and complete performance verification by the end of this year. From 2020, they will apply the autonomous driving technology to unmanned taxi service and operate up to 100 vehicles throughout Russia. If the service goes well, they will expand it.
Hyundai Mobis selected Yandex as a partner as the Russian company has expertise in automobile-related software development and service. Yandex is a search engine operator that owns more than 60 percent of the Russian Internet search market. In particular, the company runs a separate department to study AI-based autonomous navigation technology and has already piloted unmanned autonomous taxis in two cities of Innopolis and Skokovo in Russia.
In this technical cooperation, Hyundai Mobis will apply autonomous sensors and controllers and develop vehicle control software. Based on autonomous sensor technology such as camera, radar, and lidar, it has secured mass production technology for level 3 autonomous driving solutions. Hyundai Mobis is also responsible for ensuring mass production level marketability and safety through noise and vibration evaluations and radio certification for unmanned vehicles.
Yandex will apply the AI-based autonomous navigation software to the platform thus constructed and operate them in place ofpilot robot taxis in some parts of Russia to carry out verification of the vehicles.