Imagry, developer of mapless autonomous driving software solutions, announced that Continental will be integrating part of its technology in the Continental Autonomous Driving (AD) platform offering for passenger vehicles. The first feature introduced by Continental, autonomous parking, allows the vehicle to explore a parking lot, detect a suitable parking space, and park the vehicle all without the driver touching the steering wheel.
“Imagry’s technology approach is a great add-on to Continental’s software stack solutions for assisted and automated driving. We are impressed by the talented and highly motivated Imagry team and we are looking forward to jointly realize new automated parking features,” said Aniss Ouyeder, head of partnerships and innovation at Continental Business Area Autonomous Mobility.
Imagry software combines cutting-edge AI technology that captures and recognizes a real-time video feed with a deep neural network to make complex driving decisions instantly, based on current driving conditions, the company says. As such, the solution is mapless, i.e., not limited to pre-learned geographic areas. Over the last three years, Imagry adds it has been operating vehicles equipped with its autonomous driving software on public roads in the United States, Germany, and Israel.
How the Autonomous Driving Technology Works
Imagry’s autonomous driving motion planning technology will be used. The Motion Planning layer is a deep neural network that learns to drive by imitating human behavior, making motion planning decisions in real time. It extrapolates and generalizes by drawing on the learned behavior to navigate new roads independently, making complex data-driven decisions based on what it perceives in the moment, the company says. For the first phase of the autonomous valet parking feature, the driver must be in the vehicle, monitoring the surroundings and the car’s maneuvers. The driver decides when, and if, to engage the autonomous valet parking feature.
“Autonomous parking is just the first step in the path to full autonomous driving,” states Eran Ofir, CEO at Imagry. “The capabilities of our mapless system extend easily to the open road, enabling the vehicle to operate freely in geographic areas which were previously unknown to it. We’re confident that Continental OEM customers will soon appreciate the full extent of our exciting offering.”
