NVIDIA and TomTom develop mapping system for self-driving cars

NVIDIA and TomTom (TOM2), the Dutch mapping and navigation group, announced on Friday they are partnering to develop artificial intelligence to create a cloud-to-car mapping system for self-driving cars.

The work combines TomTom’s extensive HD map coverage, which already spans more than 120,000 km of highways and freeways, with the NVIDIA DRIVE™ PX 2 computing platform. Together, the solution accelerates support for real-time in-vehicle localization and mapping for driving on the highway.

HD mapping systems

NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced the collaboration at the company’s inaugural GTC Europe, a regional version of its annual GPU Technology Conference in Silicon Valley, now in its seventh year.

“Self-driving cars require a highly accurate HD mapping system that can generate an always up-to-date HD map in the cloud,” said Rob Csongor, vice president and general manager of Automotive at NVIDIA. “DRIVE PX 2 for AutoCruise provides TomTom with a real-time, in-vehicle source for HD map updates.” The NVIDIA DriveWorks software development kit now integrates support for TomTom’s HD mapping environment. The open solution is available for all automakers and tier 1 suppliers developing autonomous vehicles.

Collaboration

“This collaboration is an important step for TomTom,” said Willem Strijbosch, head of Autonomous Driving at TomTom. “Combining our highly accurate HD maps with NVIDIA’s self-driving car platform will enable us to propose new features to automakers faster, and therefore to make autonomous driving a commercial reality sooner.”

GTC Europe attendees can see firsthand what goes on inside the brain of a self-driving car. Demonstrations of the DRIVE PX 2 AI car computer and NVIDIA DriveWorks software for object detection, free space calculation, map localization and path planning will be on display at the event, Sept. 28-29, at Amsterdam’s Passenger Terminal building.