California’s capital city Sacramento has announced it will partner with Deepen AI, Inc and Foresight AI, Inc on the Innovative Transportation Initiative.
The initiative, which will use Deepen’s annotation technology and Foresight’s map building capability, is geared towards preparing Sacramento for widespread deployment of autonomous vehicle technology. A three-month pilot will begin in February, focused on developing high definition 3D maps of three demonstration routes. The Innovative Transportation Initiative aims to produce a comprehensive, accurately labelled mapping system to enable autonomous vehicles to navigate the city safely and reliably.
Annotation technology provided by Deepen will deploy advanced artificial intelligence technology in tandem with human intervention to identify and label potential hazards and other physical elements of the mapped routes, using ground data collated by drones. The drones, provided by Foresight, will be equipped with advanced sensing technologies including lidar – a 3D surveying technology – cameras and survey-grade GPS. The Innovative Transportation Initiative will then bring together the data collected and analysed by both companies to generate a full mapping system, accessible through an online data portal.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who spearheaded the Innovative Transportation Initiative along with Congresswoman Doris Matsui, Senator Richard Pan and Sacramento Kings co-owner and Chairman Vivek Ranadivé, said: “Sacramento is committed to bringing our residents more shared, clean ways to get around. This partnership builds on our momentum toward becoming a centre of innovation in new transportation technologies.”
Sacramento authorities are working towards positioning the city as a nationwide leader in new and disruptive mobility technologies, citing benefits of increased autonomous vehicle uptake through the Innovative Transportation Initiative including reduced congestion, lower fuel emissions and an increase in local jobs in the autonomous vehicle and artificial intelligence industries.
Foresight CEO Chang Yuan said: “Foresight is thrilled to offer our unique aerial-based data collection services and accurate, 3D, high-definition, colorized maps via a web-based portal to Sacramento and all its future development partners.”
Deepen CEO Mohammed Musa said: “We are delighted to be working with progressive and visionary governments like The City of Sacramento and innovative partners like Foresight AI to make the autonomous vehicle dream a reality.”
