Honda Ties Up with Hong Kong Firm for Automated Driving

Tokyo, Dec. 7 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Honda Motor Co. <7267> said Thursday that it has formed an alliance with a Hong Kong startup that excels in artificial intelligence to jointly develop technologies for automated driving in urban areas. Honda aims to realize automated driving on ordinary roads as early as 2025. The deal is part of Honda's efforts to accelerate development of necessary technologies through cooperation with companies from outside the auto industry. Honda R&D Co., the research-and-development arm of Honda, signed a five-year contract with SenseTime Group Ltd. for the joint development. Their collaboration will expand to cover the robotics field in the future. For now, the two will develop AI-based algorithms for judging driving actions necessary to avoid collisions with pedestrians and vehicles by predicting their intentions. SenseTime has an excellent technology to recognize moving objects by using deep-learning techniques that extract patterns and other information by crunching through massive amounts of data. Also using Honda's technologies, the two sides hope to design programs to decide on appropriate driving actions, such as stopping, starting and collision avoidance, in response to changes in driving environments. Amid intensifying competition to develop automated driving technologies, Honda signed a memorandum of understanding in December 2016 with Waymo, which was established through the separation of Google Inc.'s automated driving research division. Honda intends to realize automated driving on expressways by around 2020. END