Israel-based Cognata said it is creating large-scale data sets that mimic every aspect of human-car interactions with high-level realism and variations.
“Those datasets are being used to train and validate the algorithms for intention recognition and provide the added safety value for the autonomous vehicles which cannot be done by manually collecting, tagging and annotating millions of images,” said Danny Atsmon, Congnata CEO.
Cognata said it provides realistic virtual automotive environments that simulate real-world test driving and generates fast, highly accurate results. “The simulation engine reproduces sensor input in high fidelity by emulating interactions with real-world materials,” Atsmon said.
He said the company can recreate cities anywhere in the world to simulate all weather conditions. This allows an expanded range of testing scenarios, beyond the current limited geographies, for OEMs and Tier-1 autonomous vehicle manufacturers.
Last year, Cognata received $5 million in funding from Emerge, Maniv Mobility and Airbus Ventures. The company said it will use the funding for its autonomous vehicle product, which combines artificial intelligence, deep learning and computer vision in a simulation platform.
“We are building a 3D city model not only of buildings, but trees and parking meters. The next layer is the autonomous layer that features cars, pedestrians and other transportation models in New York, San Francisco, Tel Aviv and London,” said Atsmon at last year’s Telematics Detroit. “The final layer of the platform is to connect the industry to the OEM’s autonomous driving solution.”
Atsmon was Harman’s head of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS).
The simulation engine reproduces sensor input in high fidelity by emulating interactions with real-world materials, the company said. Cognata also said it can recreate cities anywhere in the world, allowing an expanded range of testing scenarios beyond the current limited geographies, which they say has been a challenge for OEM and Tier-1 autonomous vehicle manufacturers.
Cognata was founded in 2016 by a team with expertise in deep learning, autonomous vehicles and computer vision, Atsmon said. “There are about 30 employees and the company is currently hiring,” he said.
The company, headquartered in Rehovot, Israel, is close to the Weizmann Institute of Science.
