An array of products and services designed to enable businesses to enhance the use of autonomous vehicles (AV) for ridesharing or goods delivery operations has been released by Argo AI. Each product can be changed to suit an individual business’s needs, whether that be self-driving tech, vehicle and fleet management solutions or data and analytics needed to introduce AV operations.
“Advancements in autonomy will improve the safety and accessibility of our roads, while also solving real business challenges,” said Brett Browning, chief technology officer and executive vice president of product development, Argo AI. “By creating this full suite of products and services, Argo offers businesses across a broad range of industries everything they need to take advantage of self-driving technology at scale.”
The company’s latest product ecosystem was created through Argo AI leveraging its own experience in the testing and operation of self-driving technology on multiple vehicle types in eight international cities.
Several other companies provided input into the product design and development process, enabling Argo to further develop tools for ride hailing/ride pooling and middle- and last-mile delivery operations. Ridesharing is currently being conducted with Lyft, and autonomous goods delivery is being carried out with Walmart.
“We know from our integrations with several businesses that customers want more than autonomous vehicles to feel confident in incorporating autonomy into existing services,” added Browning. “They require corresponding tools and solutions that can be tailored to solve their day-to-day operational needs.”
The suite of products and services incudes Argo Connect, a program which uses a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable businesses to integrate Argo-powered autonomous vehicles into their respective operations.
The Argo Autonomy Platform includes the software, hardware, high-definition maps and backend support to enable Argo autonomous vehicles to carry out operations safely on public roadways. The platform is made up of Argo Drive, a self-driving software and hardware; Argo Lidar, a long-range sensor which can see over 400m with camera-like resolution and single photon detection to recognize dark objects; Argo Map, a high-definition map network that includes built-in street-level knowledge of roadways, traffic infrastructure and speed limits; and Argo Hub, a suite of cloud tools and infrastructure to support autonomous vehicles in the field. Argo Autonomy Solutions and Argo Autonomy Data and Analytics solutions were also released.