The relentless search for holy grail technologies for safe autonomous and nextgen vehicles has been bolstered by Cambridge trio Linaro, Arm and Huawei.

Linaro, an open source collaborative engineering organisation, has joined forces with Japan-based intelligent vehicle technology company Tier IV, Inc., and US-based autonomous mobility systems software company Apex.AI to form the Autoware Foundation. Arm and Huawei are adding technology and tech muscle to the alliance.

The non-profit organisation has been created to initiate, grow, and fund open source collaborative engineering Autoware projects, starting with Autoware.AI, Autoware.Auto, and Autoware.IO. 

Autoware.AI is the original Autoware project started in 2015 by Shinpei Kato at Nagoya University that is being used globally by more than 100 companies in more than 30 vehicles today. 

Autoware.Auto is a rewrite of Autoware using ROS 2.0 for certifiable software stacks used in vehicles. Autoware.IO focuses on heterogeneous platform support based on 96Boards products, vehicle control interfaces as well as a collection of third-party software and hardware tools to help deliver the core values of Autoware.

Examples of Autoware.IO projects include simulators, device drivers for sensors, by-wire controllers for vehicles, and hardware-independent programs for SoC boards.

Shinpei Kato from Tier IV and the University of Tokyo, Jan Becker from Apex.AI and Stanford University and Yang Zhang from Linaro 96Boards and the Chinese Academy of Sciences AI Institute have together formed the founding board of directors for the Autoware Foundation. 

A technical steering committee is being formed from representatives of the Premium Members to drive the technical direction of the projects. Founding Premium Members include Cambridge tech trio Linaro 96Boards, Arm and Huawai, Apex.AI, AutoCore, AutonomouStuff, Kalray, LG, Parkopedia, StreetDrone, Tier IV and Velodyne. 

The premium members are supported by founding Industrial and academic & non-profit members including eSOL, Intel, Nagoya University, OSRF (Open Source Robotics Foundation), RoboSense, Semi Japan, SiFive, TRI-AD (Toyota Research Institute Advanced Development, Inc), and Xilinx.

Mark Hambleton, vice-president open source software, Arm said: “As we work towards the mass deployment of safe, fully autonomous vehicles, we need to ensure that automotive players have the ability to influence technical direction and implement platform support for their solutions.
“This partnership will allow the Autoware ecosystem to further collaborate on certifiable software stacks for secure, safe, and efficient next-generation vehicles.”

Jerry Su, chief architect of Huawei Autonomous Driving. said: “We are thrilled to be joining the Autoware Foundation. Huawei is a leading global ICT solutions provider.

“We advocate customer-centricity, dedication, and continuous innovation based on customer needs. Collaboration with Autoware enables us to work with the community to develop the self-driving vehicle software that accelerates the industry growth and benefits our customers.”

 • Image courtesy of Arm