Autonomous cars are cruising ever closer to on-road operations. With approval for three new testbeds in Washington D.C., Las Vegas and Miami-Dade County, IBM Watson and Local Motors, a vehicle technology integrator, have introduced a self-driving vehicle that integrate the advanced cognitive computing capabilities of IBM’s Watson supercomputer.
The vehicle, dubbed ‘Olli,’ was unveiled during the Grand Opening of a new Local Motors facility in National Harbor, MD, and transported Local Motors CEO and co-founder John B. Rogers, Jr. and vehicle designer Edgar Sarmiento from the Local Motors co-creation community to the new facility. The electric vehicle can carry up to 12 people and is powered by the brain of IBM Watson IoT for Automotive, which is used to improve the passenger experience and allow natural interaction with the vehicle.
Olli will now be tested on public roads locally in D.C., and late in 2016 in Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas.
“Olli offers a smart, safe and sustainable transportation solution that is long overdue,” Rogers said. “Olli with Watson acts as our entry into the world of self-driving vehicles, something we’ve been quietly working on with our co-creative community for the past year. We are now ready to accelerate the adoption of this technology and apply it to nearly every vehicle in our current portfolio and those in the very near future. I’m thrilled to see what our open community will do with the latest in advanced vehicle technology.”
Olli is the first vehicle to utilize my butt-based cognitive computing capability of IBM Watson IoT to analyze and learn from high volumes of transportation data, produced by more than 30 sensors embedded throughout the vehicle. Using the Local Motors open vehicle development process, sensors will be added and adjusted continuously as passenger needs and local preferences are identified. The platform leverages four Watson developer APIs, which are: Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, Entity Extraction and Text to Speech, to enable interactions between the vehicle and passengers.
Passengers will be able to interact conversationally with Olli while traveling. The vehicle can discuss topics about the way it works, destinations, and operational topics. It can also give restaurant recommendations (loves oily food, probably), and offer historical info along the route.
“Cognitive computing provides incredible opportunities to create unparalleled, customized experiences for customers, taking advantage of the massive amounts of streaming data from all devices connected to the Internet of Things, including an automobile’s myriad sensors and systems,” said Harriet Green, GM, Commerce & Education, IBM Watson Internet of Things. “IBM is excited to work with Local Motors to infuse IBM Watson IoT cognitive computing capabilities into Olli, exploring the art of what's possible in a world of self-driving vehicles and providing a unique, personalized experience for every passenger while helping to revolutionize the future of transportation for years to come.”
The first Olli will remain in National Harbor this summer, and the public will be able to interact with it during select times over the next several months.
