LG Electronics, a developer of home appliances and consumer electronics that operates a large R&D facility in Troy, has partnered with global digital mapping and locations services provider HERE Technologies to create telematics solutions for autonomous vehicles. Both companies aim to support automakers worldwide with a secure data communications hub for highly automated and fully autonomous vehicles.
“We’re presenting a new standard for autonomous mobile communication solutions in cooperation with HERE, which has unsurpassed cutting-edge automotive guidance technology,” says J.Y. Kim, executive vice president of LG’s Vehicle components smart business unit. “With partners like HERE, LG can continue to advance the next generation of connected car technologies to help prepare automakers for the self-driving era.”
The telematics industry integrates telecommunications and informatics to provide vehicle safety and entertainment services including navigation, location confirmation, and emergency dispatch through GPS, digital multimedia broadcasting, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and mobile communication.
LG has been creating high-precision map information since entering the market in 2013, and HERE is a global provider of map data and location services to the automotive industry, powering more than 100 million cars on the road daily. The company is also developing HD Live Map, a highly-accurate cloud-based map service that supports advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) central to connected and autonomous vehicles. LG intends to deploy HD Live Map in the joint solution offered to automakers to identify all roads and surrounding features such as lane markings, stop signs, crosswalks, speed signs, and traffic lights.
When fully developed, telematics will play a key role in the communication hub for autonomous vehicles, beginning with cameras, radar, and LIDAR technology in the vehicle’s ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) to read the environment and send data to the cloud along with information collected via vehicle to everything communication.
“To operate safely and efficiently, autonomous vehicles will need many kinds of robust data sources and powerful communication technologies,” says Moon Lee, vice president of HERE Technologies. “We believe our Open Location Platform-powered services can play a critical role in next-generation telematics technology for autonomous vehicles, and we’re excited to be working with LG to make this a reality.”
LG Electronics is based in South Korea and has a global footprint of $48 billion on an annual basis.
