10 Technologies for Autonomous Vehicle, Robotics Developers From NVIDIA’s GTC 2021

NVIDIA DRIVE Orin supports all kinds of vehicles

From autonomous trucks to advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) in sports cars, numerous vehicle makers and suppliers are using the high-performance compute of the DRIVE Hyperion 8 system, said NVIDIA.

NVIDIA DRIVE is NVIDIA’s full-stack and open platform for autonomous vehicles, and Hyperion 8 is NVIDIA’s latest hardware and software architecture.

The sensor suite includes 12 cameras, nine radars, 12 ultrasonics and one front-facing lidar. All are processed by two NVIDIA Orin systems on a chip (SoCs). Luminar Technologies Inc. was named as a lidar supplier.

Baidu is using the SoC and sensor suite to develop its third-generation Sanxian platform for self-driving cars.

Similarly, QCraft will use NVIDIA’s hardware in its robotaxis and robotic buses, which it expects to start offering in 2023.

Level 4 autonomous truck developer Kodiak Robotics (which just raised $125 million) and retrofit kit provider Plus both also plan to use DRIVE Orin to enhance object detection and overall performance and safety, said NVIDIA.