Optimus Ride taps Nvidia for its level 4 autonomous cars

Optimus Ride, an autonomous technology startup based in Boston, today revealed Nvidia’s Drive AGX Xavier as its development platform of choice for driverless cars.

Optimus plans to upgrade all of its autonomous vehicles deployed in Boston’s Seaport District and the Union Smart Point development in Weymouth, Massachusetts with Drive AGX Xavier, and incorporate the hardware/software framework into future prototypes at yet-to-be-announced sites.

CEO and cofounder Ryan Chian, who formerly led the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, said that Xavier will help the company build its first fully driverless fleet service for geofenced deployments. The cars will be capable of Level 4 autonomous driving , meaning they’ll operate with limited human input and oversight in specific conditions and locations (as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers ).

“With the introduction of Nvidia Drive AGX Xavier, our vehicles will be able to adapt and respond to their environments faster than ever before, comprehending what’s happening around them in real time,” he said. “With this level of insight and responsiveness, we’ll be able to introduce fully autonomous services in our deployment regions by the end of the year.”

Optimus — an MIT spinout founded by a team of DARPA Urban Challenge competitors and other autonomous driving engineers — has flown mostly under the radar since October 2017, when it announced a partnership with real estate developer LStar ventures that saw the 1,550-acre Union Point neighborhood gain self-driving car service.

Optimus became one of the first firms to secure a driverless vehicle permit from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation in 2016, with tests of its 25-plus car fleet starting in Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park in the Seaport District. It previously piloted its software — a suite capable of mapping, controlling vehicles, coordinating vehicle fleets, detecting and avoiding objects, and […]

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