Honda’s Self-Driving Car Readies for Prime Time

Honda is moving into the fast lane of the automated driving arena and recently showcased one of its vehicles — which was reported by PC Magazine.

The scene sounded like something out of 1950s horror movie — abandoned buildings and empty bunkers on a 5,000-acre former military weapons storage facility.

What is clear is that Honda has been much more low key than other prominent players, including Google, Apple and Toyota.

But, as PC Magazine writer Tom Brant noted: “Honda is serious about driverless cars: its testbed is packed with cameras, sensors, and AI algorithms. To put them through their paces, the company transformed part of the abandoned weapons facility here into a model city, where it can simulate pretty much any urban traffic fiasco in a controlled environment.”

As a starting point, we understand that the car first uses radar and lasers to understand and avoid potential road obstacles. Its cameras then scan the objects to determine whether they’re pedestrians, cars, or something else.

In turn, that level of intel is sent for processing to several GPUs and CPUs inside the car, which “tell the motor, brakes, and steering how best to avoid the obstacle.”

While Honda  reports that it does have a license to test its autonomous RLX on public roads in California, for the moment it’s sticking to controlled situations.

Category: Featured, General Update