AMD Xilinx announced that Japanese automotive systems supplier Aisin is using AMD’s Automotive (XA) Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC platform to power the Aisin Automated Parking-Assist (APA) system, which is due to ship in model year 2024 vehicles.
“This is not just a research project or a prototype,” said Rehan Tahir, senior product marketing manager at AMD. “They usually start shipping the cars a few months earlier than the model year, so we’re talking about something that is probably less than a year away.” AMD did not specify which car models its technology would be used in, though it is worth noting that the company is part-owned by Toyota, and that its systems have been used in models such as the Toyota Prius and other vehicles.
The AMD platform will be used in the cameras that represent one aspect of the Aisin APA system. The APA system uses four cameras and 12 ultrasonic sensors mounted on the vehicle to recognize the surrounding environment and calculate the driving route. The system then controls the vehicle according to the calculated route to park itself, complete with automated emergency braking in the event of a potential collision with another vehicle or pedestrian coming into view.
Tahir said some APA systems are likely to be offered as premium experiences on near-future Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous vehicles, and that toward the end of the current decade, “we'll start seeing the APA also in mid-range and even entry level vehicles. It may not have such a fancy display in those vehicles. But it can still handle the parking capabilities in an autonomous fashion.”
He said such systems also could evolve to be incorporated in central module/domain controller systems as ADAS system technology continues to evolve.
The AMD platform combines an Arm-based multicore, multiprocessing system with ASIC-class programmable logic containing custom co-processors that can be optimized to meet system needs, including a deep learning processor unit for convolutional neural network processing. This enables machine learning-based scene segmentation and object detection for the Aisin APA system. The XA Zynq MPSoC platform delivers maximum processing efficiency and is capable of offloading critical functions, such as graphics and video pipelining, to dedicated processing blocks to enable low-latency image processing
“Aisin’s APA system leverages complex AI and requires an SoC delivering high performance and low latency, which led us to choosing the AMD Xilinx XA Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC platform,” said Morito Oshita, president, Chassis and Vehicle Safety System Company, Aisin Corporation, in a statement. “Basic surround-view systems reduced some of the challenges of manual parking for consumers, whereas APA systems can now significantly ease the stress of parking in tight spots. We are pleased to start development and bring this solution to consumers.”