German startup understand.ai has been acquired by dSPACE, a producer of various solutions for the testing and development of autonomous vehicles.
Understand.ai will focus on the development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications and cloud-based tools and will leverage the dSPACE global sales network to market its products and services.
“Understand.ai is an AI technology leader with a focus on automated data analysis, data annotation, and extraction of simulation scenarios for autonomous vehicles,” said Martin Goetzeler, CEO of dSPACE. “With these key technologies, we are strategically enhancing the dSPACE portfolio to offer our customers a unique, integrated development and test solution for autonomous driving.”
Marc Mengler, co-founder and CEO of understand.ai, added, “We see dSPACE as the ideal partner for growth as understand.ai takes its next development step. Testing is the bottleneck in the development of autonomous driving, and dSPACE, as a leading development partner of the automotive industry, will give us a strong momentum with its expertise and network.”
Self-learning (machine learning) algorithms, particularly deep neural networks (DNN) based on artificial intelligence, are integral to the safe and efficient operation of autonomous vehicles. These algorithms must be trained and validated efficiently, meaning there is a requirement to analyze, annotate and also anonymize a tremendous amount of recorded (camera, lidar, and radar) sensor data.
The quantity, quality and diversity of this training and validation data determines the quality of the resulting DNNs. The annotation process, also called labeling, is required for classifying the objects as a reference for machine learning. Today, this process carried out manually, which is mostly time-consuming and does not always ensure the highest quality level.
Understand.ai uses self-learning algorithms to process high-quality training and validation data. The underlying key technology is also based on artificial intelligence and ensures efficient data analysis, as well as precise data annotation.
Both dSpace and understand.ai will be exhibiting at Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo in Novi, MI, on October 22, 23, 24, 2019. Entry to the exhibition is free of charge, just register here for your badge.