AutonomouStuff May News

Features

Safety Q&A with Hexagon A&P's functional safety expert

As vehicles gain greater connectivity, more refined Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and other capabilities marking milestones on the path to full autonomy, automotive functional safety and cybersecurity principles have converged.

Zoltan Molnar, a functional safety engineer with Hexagon's Autonomy & Positioning division, recently sat down to discuss this convergence and how companies such as NovAtel and AutonomouStuff implement safety concepts in complex automated systems.

We asked: How has the introduction of cybersecurity standards fundamentally changed functional safety engineering?

And Zoltan answered : "It is now necessary that functional safety experts become knowledgeable of the cybersecurity standards. At Hexagon A&P, we are taking a holistic approach to the certification process, considering the integrating systems and subsystems, not just individual components. We also assure that functional safety and cybersecurity assurance is integrated throughout the development life-cycle."

Be sure to read the full Q&A with Zoltan to learn more, and reserve a virtual seat for a webinar with the expert on the Integration of Functional Safety and Cybersecurity.

Upcoming webinar: Integration of Functional Safety and Cybersecurity

Functional safety in the automotive industry is no longer just about mechanical components. With the increasing prevalence of onboard computers, sensors and connected technology, safety engineering now demands a more holistic approach to entire systems and the ways they communicate .

Join us June 18 for a free webinar with Functional Safety Engineer Zoltan Molnar as he presents on "Integration of Functional Safety and Cybersecurity — Analysis Connection Points in Automotive Standards and Beyond." Zoltan will examine how cybersecurity measures can be combined with functional safety in autonomous applications.

The presentation will include:

Registration for the free webinar and Q&A with Zoltan is open and can be found right here.

Products

NovAtel and AS collaborate: OEM7 ROS driver

AutonomouStuff and NovAtel have worked closely together for years to deliver accurate and dependable positioning systems for autonomous systems and referencing, and both are part of Hexagon's Autonomy & Positioning division. So it made sense for engineers from both entities to collaborate on a new ROS driver for the next generation of GNSS/INS precise positioning technology .

Using input from AutonomouStuff engineers and customers who depend on our positioning kits, NovAtel has developed a new open-source ROS driver for the OEM7-based vehicle positioning kit lineup offered by AutonomouStuff. The formal unveiling of the new driver has finally arrived after testing with the Open Autonomy engineering team at AutonomouStuff's research facility in Ottawa.

Key features of the new ROS driver include:

For more details, read NovAtel's full press release .

Highlight: Traffic Light Detector

AutonomouStuff’s Traffic Light Detector software leverages the power of deep neural networks to enhance autonomy stacks with the ability to detect and classify traffic lights.

Our Open Autonomy team has integrated the traffic light classifier system with the OAP6 Autoware release for our Lexus RX450h Automated Research Development Platform, as shown in this video of a test drive recently recorded at our research facility in Ottawa.

Our Traffic Light Detector software features include:

Check out our Traffic Light Detector page for additional details and videos.

Meet the team: Matt Buedel

Matt Buedel joined AutonomouStuff as a technical writer at the beginning of 2019 after nearly two decades as a journalist. As his responsibilities have expanded to include company communications, some of the same skills honed while writing for newspapers are being applied to next-generation technology.

"It has been quite a leap moving from an established but struggling industry into one with less history but greater momentum," Matt said. "Some things, however, remain consistent: even in a field where automation is one of the main goals, working and communicating with people is vital. I've found a team at AutonomouStuff that is professionally and personally supportive — and motivated to always move forward."

We're grateful for employees who bring experience from other industries and evolve to help define the future of mobility!

Learn more about our awesome team  here.

AutonomouStuff culture

AutonomouStuff values relationships — with employees, partners, and the communities where we all live. We strive to give employees opportunities to grow alongside the company, while together setting a course for the future of transportation. We consider the culture that has evolved at AutonomouStuff a vital part of the enterprise, and we work hard to maintain an environment that cherishes individuality, nurtures teamwork, and ultimately makes us more like family than colleagues .

Learn more about our culture.

Hexagon's response to COVID-19

COVID-19 is affecting everyone on a global scale, which means that we all must work together to limit the spread of the virus and protect the people at risk. At Hexagon, our priority is keeping our employees and customers safe, and we are following all guidelines and recommendations set up at national, regional and local levels to do so.

Through all of this, we recognize that our employees and our customers are relying on Hexagon more than ever. Rest assured that we are taking all necessary steps to protect our employees and to minimize risk to the supply of our products and our services to our customers.

At Hexagon | AutonomouStuff, we see our customer relationships as partnerships — working together, we can all achieve our goals. That’s how we established ourselves in the autonomy industry over the last decade. We take that responsibility seriously, now more than ever, and are taking all the necessary steps to support our partners and the communities where we all live.