Robotic mobility startup Perceptin has demonstrated how self-driving cars and the next-generation cellular network, 5G, can work together to provide real-time images while on the move.
The company’s Dragonfly Pod uses vision-based sensor fusion with a modular computing system to enable self-driving capabilities. Using 5G network’s high bandwidth and low latency enables the pod to receive and send large amounts of real-time data such as location, destination and speed information without any delay, the company said.
Perceptin said 5G technology can help the market for autonomous vehicles become more mature and accessible as well as become a catalyst for the development of future self-driving cars by providing all communication needed for road safety through the 5G network. Additionally, in networked vehicles, 5G would allow for real-time, effective communications to avoid collisions, congestion and other hazards.
"Faster networks such as 5G means autonomous vehicles are going to become more available and safer," said Dr. Shaoshan Liu, chairman and CEO of Perceptin.
The Dragonfly Pod uses odometry data to locate a pod within 20 centimeters with cameras adding the ability to construct a panoramic point cloud at 30 frames per second to locate the pod in a 3D space.
The Dragonfly Pod navigates through a proprietary sensor module that is being used for object detection, localization and video streaming. The design of the Dragonfly Pod is customizable by modularizing key components to allow those with limited engineering knowledge to integrate five or six components to build a personal autonomous vehicle, the company said.
The video above was taken at the recent Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona, Spain, where Perceptin and its partners demonstrated how the Dragonfly vehicle works on a 5G network.
