Driving towards intelligent and safe mobility
Zenuity is an advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous drive (AD) technology developer and was formed in 2017 as a joint venture between Volvo Cars and automotive safety supplier, Autoliv. This joint venture is an industry first, where an OEM and Tier-1 supplier, both recognized as pioneers in automotive safety, formed a company to develop the software and solutions the industry requires to create a global connected automotive ecosystem.
Its global connectedness is exemplified in its site expansion, maintaining a headquarters close to Qualisys’ home base in Gothenburg, Sweden, with mid-size sites in Munich, Germany and Detroit, USA, while smaller scale sites exist in Santa Clara (USA), Linköping (Sweden), and Shanghai.
Since the launch of Zenuity in 2017, Autoliv has divided itself into the passive safety department, which focuses on airbags and seat belts, and the active safety department, which was inherited by a new company – Veoneer, a global leader in the design, development, manufacture and sale of automotive safety electronics.
Active safety includes functions such as Autonomous Emergency Braking – the autonomous braking of a vehicle, Adaptive Cruise Control – the monitorization and adjustment of a vehicle’s pre-set speed to keep a pre-set distance from vehicles ahead, Traffic Jam Assist and Highway Assist – the assisted control of braking and acceleration in slow-moving traffic and highway speed, among others. 1
With an ambition to make safe and intelligent mobility available to as many people as possible, the company sought out technology that would aid to the localization vehicles. Location-based services require positioning systems, which can estimate the user location. Global Positioning System (GPS) is commonly used in navigation, tracking, and public safety. However, in indoor environments, signals from the GPS satellites are obstructed, delivering limited coverage and inaccurate results. Recognizing that optical motion capture technology provides a solution for indoor vehicle localization and automation, Zenuity’s sites were soon provided with 12 Qualisys 7+ cameras to support their work in the development of autonomous driving solutions.
The motion capture system is set up in a 170 square meter ring which exists in each facility and is used to localize vehicles for indoor applications. For instance, by tracking the location of a vehicle performing its regular tests, the developers may use the vehicles positional and orientational data collected to determine traffic gaps and time instances to perform maneuvers and calculate algorithms to apply in automated testing.
With weatherproof capabilities, Qualisys 7+ cameras allow the work to continue in an outdoor setting to test specific maneuvers in various scenarios. A critical component of the Qualisys system is its open source real-time software development kit (RT SDK), which allows the testing team to use the system to work in cohesion with their own autonomous software applications. Algorithms determined in earlier stages of testing can be used to control vehicular movement in real-time when performing automated maneuvers on a test track. With this function, team can have a higher degree of automation which minimizes manual labor.
Zenuity’s test team has recently been using the Qualisys system to track objects within the vehicle itself, giving insight to ergonomic designs and driver reaction tendencies. The in-vehicle tracking was a joint internship between two students, one from Zenuity and one from Qualisys, which exemplifies the strong partnership and collaboration between the Gothenburg-based companies.
These tests inspired the team to think outside of the box as they imagine using the Qualisys motion capture system in many ways for a variety of applications.
The mocap system is a very powerful tool, sometimes we come up with new applications for it and in that sense, it’s quite exciting to use such a system for our work.
Christoffer Gillberg
1 Additional active safety functions include:
- Forward Collision Warning
- Blind Spot Detection
- Rear Cross-Traffic Assist
- Lane Departure Warning
- Lane Centering Assist
- Traffic Sign Detection
- Light Source Recognition
- Driver Monitoring for attention and drowsiness
- Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communication
- Night Driving Assist.
Want to know more?
To learn more about Zenuity and the partnerships in which they collaborate, refer to the following links.