TIER IV issued a correction to its previously released announcement on Artificial Intelligence-based Level 4 autonomous driving. The company said, “*March 18 update: Two scenes were added to the video ‘Test Driving of Level 4 Autonomous Driving Functions in Tokyo’ while retaining part of the original footage”, and the YouTube URL of “Demonstration of Level 4 autonomous driving features in Tokyo” was updated to “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bq0uW15UZk”.
The corrected release details software stacks for Level 4 autonomous driving powered by data-centric Artificial Intelligence and made publicly available through Autoware, open-source software for autonomous driving. TIER IV said the stacks are designed to expand operational design domains and support various system-on-chip and sensor configurations without hardware lock-in. The company said automakers can use its machine learning operations platform with the new stacks to continuously improve model performance, and it has begun validation work with partners including universities in Tokyo, Pittsburgh and Munich.
TIER IV said its Level 4+ initiative starts with Level 4 under specific conditions and uses real-world operational data to refine models and broaden use cases. The release describes two configurable systems: a hybrid system with perception Artificial Intelligence and planning Artificial Intelligence, and an end-to-end system that integrates perception, planning and control into a single learning process. The software stacks are available on GitHub within the Autoware repositories, and TIER IV said it aims to help establish Artificial Intelligence-based Level 4 autonomous driving as an industry standard through collaboration with the Autoware Foundation.
The company also highlighted its machine learning operations platform, which handles data-quality validation, anonymization, tagging, annotation and dataset generation using both real-world and synthetic data. TIER IV said these capabilities are supported through collaborations with partners including the Matsuo Institute. Looking ahead, the company said it aims to advance highly practical Artificial Intelligence-based Level 4 autonomous driving by working with automakers and continuously improving model performance with large-scale driving data.
Testing is being launched in Japan, U.S. and Europe using different vehicles, system-on-chip configurations and sensor suites. Each test run lasts approximately 60 minutes. TIER IV said a safety driver will be on board in accordance with local regulations, but no manual intervention is expected under normal operating conditions. In Tokyo, the company is working with the University of Tokyo using Toyota JPN TAXI vehicles. In Pittsburgh, it is collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University using Hyundai IONIQ 5 vehicles for robotaxi tests. In Munich, it is working with the Technical University of Munich using Volkswagen T7 Multivan vehicles for safety evaluations in urban driving scenarios.
