NXP recently announced that it completed a computing platform that lets automakers test and develop self-driving cars.
The BlueBox solution is crafted so that carmakers are able to build vehicles sporting autonomous driving systems in only a few years. The BlueBox system enables the computing engine to tap into the sensors that feed information to driverless cars, such as Lidar, radar and vision.
The company says the NXP chips that power the V2X system are already being built. The chip manufacturer touts that four out of the five largest global automakers make use of its electronics. NXP focuses on providing an integrated system that is compliant with the power, processing performance and safety requirements deployed by car manufacturers.
The auto industry has been embedding the systems since September 2015. NXP points out that the company can roll out the technology in a quicker manner due to its high adoption rates with vehicle builders. Insiders from NXP tout that a car company that received the platform in September last year was able to implement it on an autonomous testing car by Christmas.
When used in driverless vehicles, BlueBox receives sensor data and outputs a full 360-degree model of the outside environment. The model assists the software in understanding the traffic conditions and calibrating the speed and positioning. BlueBox is a Linux-based, open-source platform that works on NXP's S32V automotive vision processor. There is also an LS2088A compute processor embedded in the NXP engine.
Kurt Sievers, the executive vice president of NXP's automotive venture, says he is confident that the engine will help the autonomous vehicle field advance much rapidly.
NXP is a worldwide leader in the chipmakers field and counts 45,000 employees. The company's revenue for 2015 was $6.1 billion. Its ADAS processors are used by eight out of 10 of the world's top vehicle manufacturers.
BlueBox is designed to power Level 4 autonomous cars. The rating system is part of the Society of Automotive Engineers' (SAE) standard sheet, meaning such a car has an advanced level of self-reliance but still requires a human driver to be there and intervene should something unexpected happen.
According to the SAE scale, a Level 5 driverless vehicle would need no human driver whatsoever.
NXP is not the only industry name that believes in a surge of autonomous vehicles happening before 2020. During CES 2016, executives from both Toyota and Mercedes-Benz mentioned the timeline as an important one for the development of driverless vehicles.
