When I was a kid, our family drive to the mountains for an annual ski holiday seemed interminable. After what felt like hours of driving, I would start to squirm in my seat with impatience, and would finally demand with a whiny voice, “ARE WE THERE YET?”
For many, the trek towards autonomous driving feels like we’re never going to get there. In our world of rapid change and innovation, we become impatient when our instant gratification itch isn’t scratched. After all, technology is supposed to be fast! And people have been promising fully autonomous driving for years!
As a global leader in sensor, software and autonomous solutions, Hexagon is engaged in making autonomous driving a reality. I’ll admit that sometimes I still feel like that kid in the back seat, eager to get to our destination — that is, until I remind myself and my colleagues of the enormous upside of getting this right.
Why we must go slow to go fast
The problem we’re solving is not just a technological one. It’s a human problem — because human beings are shockingly bad drivers. Did you know that human error is responsible for more than 90% of accidents, and that there are 1.5 million fatalities and 50 million injuries on the world’s roads — each year? That’s equivalent to 160 Airbus A320s crashing every month — how could anyone remain indifferent to an epidemic of this magnitude?
At Hexagon, we are not indifferent — we are deliberate and committed. That’s why we launched our Smart Autonomous Mobility portfolio at CES 2020, which is an ambitious, coordinated effort to bring together all the necessary sensors and software to make autonomous driving not only possible, but also safe.
Enable, Accelerate, Deploy
Hexagon is on a mission to enable customers of all types and sizes to accelerate and deploy a bold autonomous mobility vision — from research and development through advanced machine learning and simulation, to full integration into passenger and commercial fleets.
From assured global positioning technologies to LiDAR sensors. From high definition 5D maps to software that simulates billions of miles validated and verified. We’re integrating all these technologies, including machine learning and real-time AI — along with many partner technologies — into real vehicles that are compressing the equivalent of hundreds of years of driving data into a few months so that we can capture every possible scenario imaginable.
While some might feel that progress isn’t fast enough, the only race we want to win is safety of life for autonomous driving. The result will be a smart autonomous mobility that is safer and more efficient than humans could ever achieve — from city streets and highways to a construction site or an open pit mine.
To move quickly, we must slow down to ensure all the right pieces are in place. At Hexagon, we are patiently empowering an autonomous future that will be here before you know it.
