Wrapping up our summer series on autonomous vehicles, our final Drive to Level 5  interview is with Willard Tu, Senior Director of Automotive Technologies at Xilinx. 

Willard will be giving his presentation on "Transportation as a Service" at The Drive World Conference in Santa Clara CA on Thursday August 29th.  The continuing evolution of autonomous vehicles has enormous implications for all of us. Whether it comes to fruition in five years or ten, this technology will change they way we work, they way we play and essentially how we live. 

But how this evolution takes place requires a number of different technologies to continue to develop and come together. Those include :

In this interview Willard takes us through these technologies and discusses the implications autonomous vehicles have for all of us. 

Drive World Expo & Conference is the first industry trade show devoted to autonomous vehicles. This technology has the potential - and almost certainly will - impact every bit of our lives from how we work, play and plan our family finances (will we HAVE to by a car?) 

Sam Abuelsamid is a Principal Analyst at Navigant Research who will be discussing these topics and many others on August 28th & 29th at the Drive World conference. As the autonomous technologies continue to evolve and merge it will have enormous impact on the transportation sector which is a major part of the global economy. In addition Sam will be part of a panel discussion on the achievability of true Level 5 autonomy. What are the challenges that still need to be overcome and how close are we?

Sam talked with The Drive to Level 5 podcast series about these topics and many others regarding autonomous vehicles. Anyone interested in this technology and the potential impact it has for all of us should listen to this discussion and attend the Drive World Conference & Expo. 

Tim Wong is the Technical Marketing Executive for NVIDIA, a world leader in the developing the technology for autonomous vehicles and an authority  on the subject. Tim will be a speaker and panelist at the Drive World Conference & Expo in Santa Clara CA from August 27th to 29th.  

Tim joined us for an excellent podcast interview on the feasibility of true autonomous driving and just how close are we. What challenges lie ahead and what we can expect in the coming years. 

LiDAR is the autonomous vehicle acronym that stands for Light, Detection and Ranging Technology.  How good is it now and how good will it get in the years to come? 

Zhenchun Xia is the Senior Engineer, ADAS Control Systems at Mitsubishi.  His presentation will address this topic at the Drive World Conference & Expo in Santa Clara CA on August 27th at 9:00 AM.  Zhenchun will be addressing how autonomous vehicles detect, range, and map the car's surroundings. Ideally, these cars will be operating in dry, sunny conditions. But what happens when it starts to rain, snow, or fog sets in? 

This session will take an in-depth look at how LiDAR works and if we can really rely on the technology in less than perfect driving conditions. Some testing results under adverse weather conditions will be discussed.

Zhenchun explains the capability and advantages/limits of LiDAR detections in the edge conditions, like very far distance (up to 200 - 300 meters), highly dense point cloud in specific environment (trees surrounding traffic interaction, etc), as well as the highly dynamic driving conditions (high speed of host vehicles and the targeting vehicles, etc).

The general LiDAR detections algorithm and the calibration technology will also be discussed.

Tom Shalk, VP of Voice Technology  at Sirius, will be giving a talk at the Drive World Conference in Santa Clara CA August 27 - 29.  Tom will be talking about the voice interface with the car and how that will be increasing substantially in the coming years. 

In this podcast Tom gives us a great update on the companies that have developed the voice recognition technology the most, how the car manufacturers are working with it and what are the challenges still ahead. 

To learn more about the Drive World Conference and Tom's talk go to: https://adsc19.mapyourshow.com/8_0/sessions/session-details.cfm?scheduleid=9

The Drive World Conference & Expo is a first of it's kind. Combining the technologies of autonomous vehicles with embedded systems, this is a must attend event for engineers and industry executives who need to stay on top of the changes in the industry . This event has been three years in the making and no one knows more about it than Suzanne Deffree, Brand Director, Drive World Expo and Conference.  

In this podcast Suzanne walks us through the importance of this technology, where it is today, where it's going and the impact it will have on our lives. After listening visit https://driveworldexpo.com to learn more and make your plans to attend.