At the Taiwan Automotive Technology Innovation Summit 2018, Acer, known mainly for its computers, had introduced its self-driving concept car. Built in collaboration with Taiwan’s Yulon Group and its subsidiaries HAITEC, an automotive electronics provider, and Luxgen, the car brand, the concept car integrates Acer’s autonomous driving system with the Luxgen S3 electric vehicle platform. The two companies demonstrated their level 4-ready self-driving concept car, showcasing their shared vision of AI (artificial intelligence) and autonomous driving technology. To compare, Volvo’s Pilot Assist and Tesla’s Autopilot systems are level 2.

“Both the automotive and ICT industries are going through a paradigm shift; automation, connectivity, electrification, and ‘servicification’ are key trends of future development,” said Edward Lin, Associate Vice President, Value Lab, Acer Inc. “In the realm of smart transportation, Acer already has a foothold in electronic ticketing, smart parking, connected car, and traffic prediction, and we’re excited to work with Yulon Group to venture into self-driving cars.”

“With Acer’s strength across software, hardware, and services, we’re in a great position to leverage our AI technology and fulfill the vision of Mobility as a Service (MaaS),” Lin added.

Acer’s level 4-ready self-driving Luxgen S3 electric concept car, leverages AI and sensor fusion algorithms fed with data from real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning, cameras, Lidars, milimetre-wave (MMW) radars, inertial measurement unit (IMU) and ultrasonic sensors for sensing, decision-making and control. It also uses deep learning technology to conduct object recognition, and then implements dynamic vehicle control to realize autonomous driving.

“Autonomous driving is the future trend of the automotive industry, manufacturers around the world are stepping up from level 2 autonomous driving to level 3 and 4,” said Jung-Kuei Chen, Vice President, Product Engineering Group II, HAITEC. “With Acer, we’ve jointly unveiled Taiwan’s first self-driving concept car with ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), IoV (Internet of Vehicles) and autonomous driving technology. Integrating Acer’s expertise in AI and the cloud with HAITEC’s self-developed open vehicle platform, we’ve achieved so much through our cross-industry collaboration.”

Acer’s self-driving system makes dynamic vehicle control decisions through AI models based on key data including image recognition, 3D Lidar obstacle detection, high-precision maps and real-time positioning to help the car steer, brake, cruise, maneuver, or park. It also has a cloud management system for car sharing services so that a control centre can dispatch vehicles when users make transportation requests through their mobile device. The cloud management system can manage scheduling, monitoring, notification, and reporting, and allows safety monitoring and human intervention.

In the future, Acer’s self-driving system can enable multiple levels of autonomous driving, with plans to open the platform to partners and developers to collaborate on next-generation self-driving services.