Taiwan government-sponsored Automotive Research & Testing Center (ARTC) will provide a third-party platform for testing locally-produced components/devices for autonomous driving.
ARTC said that in November 2018 it partnered with 18 companies to form Autonomous Driving Vehicle Industry Alliance, aiming to establish Taiwan's technological capability for developing autonomous driving vehicles and a corresponding supply chain. Taiwan's parliament has also passed the Statute for Innovative Experiments of Unmanned Vehicle Technology, ARTC noted.
The architecture of autonomous driving vehicles consists of three layers: sensing, decision-making and control, ARTC indicated.
The sensing layer includes LiDARs, radars, automotive cameras while the decision-making layer focuses on computing and application of AI technology, ARTC said. As the hardware and software used in autonomous driving involves various industries, there should be a third-party platform for testing all hardware/software items to make sure that they can be integrated for smooth operation in the entire autonomous driving system, ARTC indicated.
The platform will begin to provide hardware testing services for ICT makers in first-quarter 2019, testing services for deep learning used in the control layer in the second quarter and cooperate with makers to apply for regulatory sandbox in the third quarter, ARTC noted. Besides, the platform will seek to build up business models for autonomous driving vehicles in 2-4 years.
ARTC is in talks with governments of the six metropolitan areas in Taiwan for each government to designate road sections for field testing of autonomous driving vehicles and for ARTC to propose transportation solutions using autonomous driving vehicles based on governments' needs, ARTC indicated.