Global technology leader, Huawei has been making numerous technological advancements over the years, especially in their smartphone department. Now, they have made another stunning breakthrough by successfully using its AI-powered smartphone to drive a car, becoming the world’s first smartphone manufacturer to do so.
RoadReader Project
Named the RoadReader project, the vehicle leverages on Huawei’s object recognition technology to detect obstacles on the road and take the appropriate course of action when needed. This is the similar AI technology currently found on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, but the primary difference is that it’s more powerful as it can “distinguish” between 1,000s of different objects, including a cat and a dog, a ball or a bike.”
Currently, most self-driving cars require third-party technology providers to develop purpose-built chips to power the “intelligence” in the car like Nvidia and Intel. For Huawei, they are using what is already available on their smartphone to make the impossible possible in just five weeks.
Chief Marketing Officer, Huawei Western Europe, Andrew Garrihy, said:
“Our smartphone is already outstanding at object recognition. We wanted to see if in a short space of time we could teach it to not only drive a car but to use its AI capabilities to see certain objects and be taught to avoid them. If our technology is intelligent enough to achieve this in just five weeks – what else can it make possible?”
Huawei will be showcasing the RoadReader project and the vehicle’s capabilities at a two-day event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (MWC) from 26th to 27th February 2018. Delegates will be invited to test ‘drive’ the car themselves, teaching it to identify and manoeuvre around specific objects.
