Tier IV has launched a new joint initiative with Hitachi Astemo, the mobility-focused subsidiary of Hitachi, aimed at advancing autonomous driving systems and software-defined vehicles (SDVs).
Leveraging Tier IV’s open-source autonomous driving software, Autoware, the collaboration will seek to build on the engagement that both companies have with the Autoware Foundation (AWF) and Scalable Open Architecture for Embedded Edge (SOAFEE) initiative and seek to launch new solutions for mass production vehicles by 2030.
Today, Hitachi Astemo supplies various system solutions that together consider the vehicle’s full architecture and is presently developing a reference system (Internet of Vehicles Platform: IoV PF) for system development tailored to OEM needs.
The Hitachi company is also establishing a cloud-native software architecture that will integrate Autoware as its core autonomous driving software and help facilitate development and standardize specifications on the cloud. Together, through these innovations, Hitachi Astemo is looking to help OEMs enhance development efficiency, elevate product quality, reduce costs, and enable faster time-to-market.
Tier IV, itself, has been collaborating with key members of AWF and SOAFEE to define industry standards and expand the reach of the Open AD Kit, a comprehensive referential development kit for autonomous driving systems built on Autoware. In the future, the autonomous software company plans to enhance cloud-native environments for the kit and support the development of autonomous driving systems based on the SOAFEE-compliant SDV architecture. Within this collaboration, Tier IV will leverage Hitachi Astemo’s reference system to accelerate the next-generation Open AD Kit project.
Beyond these collaborations, Tier IV is also working on a large scale, co-operative machine learning operations (MLOps) infrastructure and embedded edge AI models designed for autonomous driving systems. In launching a Co-MLOps project in January 2024, the company is aiming to create a global framework to allow companies worldwide to collaborate and share data in order to accelerate advancements in machine learning and edge AI development. Tier IV highlighted that these capabilities will be integrated into the Open AD Kit and be aligned with Hitachi Astemo’s reference system.
Through its joint development initiative with Hitachi Astemo, Tier IV is ultimately working to drive the development of autonomous driving systems that add significant value to mass production models, and facilitate the future landscape of the automotive industry.
