Pony.ai, an autonomous vehicle technology company that is co-located in Silicon Valley, Beijing, and Guangzhou, has announced a strategic partnership with Horizon Robotics, a computing platform for intelligent vehicles, to develop what it describes as high-performance, cost-effective smart driving solutions.
The partnership will see the combination of Pony.ai’s L2++ smart driving solution with Horizon Robotics’ Journey series of auto-grade processors in the hopes of providing smart driving solutions for series production vehicles.
The autonomous mobility company claims to have driven more than 12 million autonomous miles so far, with the company recently launching a highway Navigate on Autopilot (NOA) solution based on a Journey 5 computing platform from Horizon.
The processor-equipped prototype vehicle completed highway NOA road tests in China in 2022 and is expected to be series production-ready by Q2 2023.
Pony.ai’s solution uses six cameras and a one-millimetre wave radar with Horizon’s processor to offer a ‘high-performance, cost-effective solution’ that does not rely on HD maps.
The NOA function is designed to intelligently navigate congested environments, and leverages years of complex scene processing to consider the interaction between driving vehicles and their surroundings, according to its developers.
“After years of iterative product development, the autonomous driving industry is approaching the era of mass commercialisation,” said Dr. James Peng, co-founder and CEO of Pony.ai.
“We are very excited to join hands with such an excellent partner as Horizon Robotics to create a smart driving ecosystem and to bring high-performance, cost-effective localised smart driving product solutions to our customers.”
By building solutions based on Horizon Robotics’ Journey 5 platform, Pony.ai plans to combine various value chain partners to develop a smart driving ecosystem that can provide OEM customers with a range of smart driving options.
