Tokyo, December 8, 2017
Honda Research and Development Co Ltd, an R&D subsidiary of Honda Motor Co Ltd has announced that it has signed a five-year joint research and development contract with SenseTime Group Limited, a China-based IT company with strengths in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. This move comes as part of Honda’s efforts to establish automated driving technologies to realise a collision-free society.
SenseTime is highly regarded on a global basis as a company that excels in image recognition technologies, especially recognition of moving objects, powered by deep learning technology, one of the most advanced AI technologies.
In this joint research and development, combining SenseTime's moving object recognition technologies with Honda's AI algorithms for scene understanding, risk prediction and action planning, the two companies will develop highly-sophisticated automated driving technologies which will enable complex automated driving in urban areas.
Moreover, this joint research and development will not be limited to automated driving, as the two companies plan to expand the joint activities into the area of robotics.
Honda promises to strive to continue serving people worldwide with the "joy of expanding their life's potential" by creating a number of innovations in the future.
Some of the areas of the Honda-SenseTime joint research and development include AI algorithms to be applied for automated driving systems such as scene-understanding to estimate the driving environment and the behaviours and intentions of pedestrians and vehicles. Another algorithm meant for risk prediction can predict the future position of pedestrians and vehicles based on the results by estimating the driving environment and the intentions of the pedestrians and vehicles. The third type of algorithm is for action planning wherein the AI can decide on the actions carried out by the vehicle such as stopping, starting and avoiding, and then generate driving trajectory based on the results of risk prediction.
The joint research also aims to develop large-scale computing technologies necessary to learn AI algorithms as well as technologies to package AI programs with on-board controllers.