Autonomous delivery robot maker Nuro has announced it has decided to license its Nuro Driver autonomous driving system to automakers and mobility service providers. The system will be tailored to the licensing company’s specific use case, be it a fully autonomous robotaxi or an ADAS driver assistance feature, The Verge reported.
Image source: Nuro
The company also plans to offer an AI developer platform “to support AI development and validation for Nuro Driver.” In March of this year, Nuro announced that the Nuro Driver system, which provides Level 4 autonomous driving for several types of vehicles, was built on Nvidia’s Drive Thor superchip and runs Nvidia’s DriveOS operating system for autonomous vehicles. Nuro also uses Nvidia GPUs for AI training.
«Built on Nvidia’s comprehensive AV security architecture, Nuro Driver can integrate sensor processing and other safety-critical capabilities, as well as AI-powered autonomy, into a single centralized computing system,” said Rishi Dhall, vice president. Nvidia’s Automotive Business, adding that it provides the reliability and performance needed to safely deploy autonomous vehicles at scale.
Nuro is one of the few companies granted an exception to federal vehicle safety regulations to allow vehicles without certain controls, such as side mirrors. This is partly due to the fact that Nuro’s self-driving cars were only used to deliver goods and groceries. But now the company is proposing to use its technology to transport people.
Andrew Clare, Nuro’s chief technology officer, said the reason the company is changing its business model is because its self-driving technology has matured to the point where it can now be used for a wider range of applications beyond just delivery. items and products.
Clair noted that Nuro is a “commercially independent” company, which gives it an advantage in negotiations with potential partners. Other major self-driving developers, such as Waymo (owned by Alphabet), Cruise (General Motors) and Zoox (Amazon), cannot boast of this.
Currently, Nuro’s autonomous vehicles used in California and Texas have traveled more than 1 million miles (1.6 million km) without any major safety incidents, Clare said. The company’s fleet includes R1 and R2 delivery robots, as well as Toyota Highlander crossovers equipped with autonomous driving equipment. Nuro is also building a plant in Nevada where it will produce the next generation of autonomous vehicles.