ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo California returned to the San Jose McEnery Convention Center on August 28 & 29, 2024, and provided a platform for industry, regulators and standards organizations to discuss the development and safe deployment of ADAS and autonomous vehicles. Topics included scalability, mitigating risks, behavior evaluation, cybersecurity, open source software, GenAI, key components in the test and development toolchain, standards and regulations and more.
The exhibition floor saw product launches and innovations to accelerate development programs and reinvent how society is moving, with 80 specialist suppliers across the ADAS/AV ecosystem – including ADAS and autonomous vehicle technologies, datalogging, testing tools, simulation, software, sensing and AI technologies – equipping visitors with a first glimpse of groundbreaking developments in this fast-paced industry. Notable exhibitors included Business Sweden, Autoware, ASAM, dSPACE, Crystal Group, Dewesoft and aiMotive.
Conference delegates heard about regulatory updates, challenges and innovations in AI and architecture, and issues and strategies for safe AD/ADAS development and deployment from more than 60 experts in autonomous vehicle research, AI, software, sensor fusion, AV testing, validation, development, standards and safety. The conference featured representatives from Nuro, Waymo, Wayve, TIER IV, Torc Robotics, Foretellix, dSPACE, Microsoft, May Mobility, Volvo Group, General Motors and Siemens, among others.
Curtis Hay, technical fellow at General Motors, said, “It’s a challenging and dynamic time within the global automotive industry. AI, electrification and advanced automation trends are all driving innovation and business investment in areas that weren’t even considered a few years ago. It’s increasingly important for OEMs to establish strategic partnerships that accelerate innovation in ways that delight our customers. GM strives to do this every day.”
“I’ve been attending the event for many years,” said Cameron Gieda, director of business development at Pony.ai. “It’s really the key show of the summer in Silicon Valley for everybody in the automotive industry.”
Alessandro Norscia, vice president of product at May Mobility, said the expo represents “a unique convergence of industry leaders, innovators and visionaries, all working toward a common goal – revolutionizing urban mobility through advanced technology”. Norscia, who spoke in the ‘Developing software, AI, big data and architecture – challenges and innovations’ session, added, “It’s an opportunity to share insights, explore cutting-edge developments and collaborate on solving the challenges that come with scaling autonomous driving solutions. As someone deeply involved in the product development side of autonomous vehicles, I’m excited to contribute to the discussion and learn from others who are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in this space.”
“As pioneers in autonomous systems, we’re committed to achieving L4 autonomy on all roads with industry-leading safety standards,” said Tilo Schwarz, vice president and head of autonomy at Nuro. “This conference allows us to engage with potential partners and explore advancements in sensor fusion, simulation and ML/AI models that could enhance our autonomous stack.”
“As always it was great to reconnect with the AVTE community in San Jose this year,” said ASAM’s CTO, Ben Engel. “We had some excellent discussions at our booth and throughout the conference. The topics were nicely aligned with those of the industry. Having a dialog between regulators, standards organizations and the industry is very valuable to making continued progress on safe ADAS/AD. We enjoyed sponsoring the drinks [reception] and hope we get remembered for more than the headache on the day after! It was super inspiring seeing so many booths displaying their ASAM member cubes. We look forward to next year!”
The event was sponsored by ASAM e.V., Applied Intuition, Business Sweden and Vector.
Conference
Presentation highlights included Nuro discussing its AI-powered Nuro Driver technology, and Pony.ai providing analysis of AV and ADAS shortcomings, and potential solutions. Xylon and AMD explored integrating FPGA and AI technology, and insights into the latest regulations and standards were given in a panel discussion on Day 2 featuring SAE International, the California DMV, ASAM eV, Davis Wright Tremaine and Foretellix.
Having spoken on [behavior reference model] Surprise at the 2023 conference, Azadeh Dinparastdjadid, senior research scientist at the Safety Research and Best Practices team at Waymo, explored computational metrics that can be used as behavioral benchmarks. Discussing the company’s concept of Drivership, she explained that it is “the realization of expected driving behaviors that position the ADS as a good citizen of the road, which can build trust by meeting and exceeding societal expectations on how autonomous driving systems behave on the road”.
Luis Morales, director of vehicle technology and product development at SEMA, gave a presentation about the effects of aftermarket modifications on a vehicle’s ADAS functionality. “This was SEMA’s first time presenting at this conference and we would like to thank the organizers for a great event. The education session content overall was informative and diverse, providing perspectives on technology development, implementation and regulation,” he said.
“SEMA brings an ADAS perspective that is often overlooked, which is primarily focused on the aftersale of the vehicle. It’s a perspective that will see an ever-growing future as ADAS becomes more standardized and vehicles maintain longer lifecycles, and with the consumer desire to customize and modify their vehicle. Understanding the ADAS performance of a vehicle that has been modified is the first step. The second will be to collaboratively work on solutions that can be applied across independent repair shops, upfitters, installers and consumers. We’re here to let the rest of the automotive industry know that the aftermarket embraces the growth of ADAS technology and we would like to build a future where the onboard ADAS functions can coexist with vehicle modifications.”
May Mobility shared its approach to scalability, which Norscia said was “the key to unlocking the future of autonomous vehicles, such as achieving their widespread deployment”. Norscia added, “Fully utilizing the conventional method of pretraining AI models in a data center, our technology is unique in that it also generates training data and learns new driving behaviors in real time, while it’s driving. This allows our vehicles to safely adapt to new, complex and unpredictable driving conditions, solving the ‘edge case’ – aka ‘long tail’ – challenge. As a result, we achieve shorter deployment times in new environments and improved economics – both of which are crucial for scalability”.
Exhibition
Crystal Group unveiled its Arm-native rugged autonomous vehicle computer, featuring Ampere Altra 128 core CPU and Nvidia GPUs for autonomous driving, including autonomous trucks. According to the team at Crystal and Ampere, Ampere CPUs are “cloud native” and are designed for virtualized and containerized workloads. Users can use their own software or open source including SOAFEE SDV, Open Robotics ROS 2 and Autoware Foundation autonomous driving software.
AB Dynamics launched its new wireless remote for ADAS testing, designed to enhance ADAS testing efficiency. “The GTC Remote integrates multiple components (joystick, display, safety controller and base station software) into a single, compact handheld unit,” said AB Dynamics sales manager Mike Rihl. “By reducing the need for hardware components, the remote streamlines the logistics of test setup so that engineers and technicians can spend more of their track time testing.”
Global simulation and validation solutions provider dSPACE showcased an early access release of its new traffic virtualizer tool. The tool enables object list data to be analyzed and converted into replica (exact restimulation) or logical (with parameter variation) scenarios.
Dewesoft unveiled Obsidian, its cutting-edge sensor fusion platform with advanced data processing capabilities, as well as its latest breakthrough in navigation systems, Navion. “Designed with state-of-the-art Kalman algorithms, Navion delivers superior accuracy in complex environments, ensuring that autonomous vehicles can navigate safely and efficiently, even in challenging conditions,” explained business development director Bojan Čontala.
Next year’s show
Visit the ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo California website for news on and to register your interest in the 2025 show.