Hyundai’s innovation arm – the Center for Robotic-Augmented Design in Living Experiences (CRADLE) – is investing in US tech startup Netradyne with the aim of leveraging mapping data to develop Level 3 autonomous driving technologies.
Netradyne specializes in the development of fleet safety management software, specifically combining artificial intelligence (AI) with vision-based dashcam devices to monitor the performance of drivers and vehicles. The system is also capable of crowdsourcing road and driving behavior metadata.
With this agreement, Hyundai and Netradyne will collaborate to utilize the road and driving behavior data collected by Netradyne to support HD mapping and map updates for Hyundai’s development of future ADAS and AD features.
The costs associated with outfitting traditional mobile mapping system (MMS) vehicles, which are currently employed for HD mapping, make it challenging for many OEMs to place enough MMS vehicles on the road to provide the necessary frequency of HD mapping updates. However, Netradyne’s devices are more cost-efficient and are currently equipped on several vehicle fleets throughout the country, enabling more frequent, high-quality HD map updates.
Netradyne has already captured and analyzed over one million unique miles of the 2.7 million total miles of paved roads in the USA. This data includes numerous passes over the same roads to provide deeper insights into how driving and road conditions may change throughout the year.
In total, Netradyne has analyzed more than 350 million miles of road data. Each mile has been analyzed using AI and collected by professional drivers.
“Netradyne has advanced vision-based and AI driven technology for managing the safety of drivers and fleets,” said John Suh, vice president of Hyundai CRADLE. “These systems can be leveraged as a reliable, high-quality crowdsourcing platform to support updating HD maps at a frequency high enough to support L3 autonomous vehicles.”
Avneesh Agrawal, founder and CEO of Netradyne, added, “We’re very pleased to announce this partnership with Hyundai CRADLE. At Netradyne, our goal has always been to make the world a safer place to drive with our advanced AI platform. We’re glad that Hyundai shares this vision and are excited to support its development in advanced ADAS and autonomous driving innovation.”
This announcement follows the September 23, 2019, announcement that Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, an industry-leading mobility solutions technology company, formed an autonomous driving joint venture to advance the design, development and commercialization of SAE Level 4 and 5 autonomous technologies.