On Wednesday 18 September 2019, nestled within a spectacular, shimmering sphere at the Atomium Brussels, an international audience came together at the AutoSens Awards to celebrate the very best technical excellence driving the automotive industry forward.
Alongside the Awards ceremony, the evening comprised of a full line-up of entertainment including a three-course dinner, science-themed comedy act from Steve Mould, goody bags for the guests and drinks freely flowing as the industry’s most accomplished figures mixed with the new entrants looking to make a splash by winning an AutoSens Award for the first time.
Sixty-one finalists were all hoping to get their name in the AutoSens Hall of Fame and win a trophy at the third edition of the annual AutoSens Awards.
Sponsors of the AutoSens Awards in 2019
Part of the international AutoSens vehicle perception conference and exhibition, the Awards, now in their third year, were judged by a world-class panel drawn from OEMs, Tier 1s and Tier 2s, industry organisations and academia to assure a robust process. Notable figures on the judging panel included Mohannad Murad, Technical Specialist, General Motors, Divya Argarwal, Staff Software Engineer, NIO and Robin Jenkin, Principal Image Quality Engineer, NVIDIA.
Winners and Silver Awards went to….
Most Influential Research – sponsored by Waymo
Winner: Guy Satat and Ramesh Raskar, MIT Media Lab – Seeing Through Fog
What the judges said… “The research from the team at MIT Media Lab has a strong relevance and applicability to the industry. It is unique in its approach to enable seeing through dense fog for self-driving cars and augmented driving.”
- Silver: RWTH Aachen University, Institute for Man-Machine-Interaction – Digital Twins and Virtual Automotive Testbeds
- Silver: Professor Anestis Terzis, Ulm University of Applied Sciences – CMS System Design and Advanced Architecture
Finalists included Edge Case Research and Carnegie Mellon University; Son Tong, Siemens; Prof. Dr. Alexander Braun, University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf; Andreas Velten and Moghit Gupta, University of Wisconsin-Madison and VSI Labs.
Most Exciting Start-up – sponsored by Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation
Winner: TriEye
What the judges said… “Scoring highly across all judging criteria. TriEye has high relevance to market needs, offers a unique product and approach and has much growth potential as this year’s most exciting start-up.”
- Silver: Outsight
- Silver: WaveSense
Finalists in the category included Designated Driver, Prana.ai and SOS LAB.
Most Innovative Autonomous Driving Platform – sponsored by NXP Semiconductors
Winner: AEye – iDAR™ Intelligent Detection and Ranging
What the judges said… “iDAR from AEye was viewed as the most innovative autonomous driving platform, since its breakthrough innovations enable self-driving cars to intelligently assess hazards and respond to changing conditions. Scoring highly with its novel features and engineering qualities.”
- Silver: Swift Navigation – Starling® Software and Skylark™ cloud corrections service
- Silver: May Mobility – Autonomous Shuttles
Finalists included AImotive, Dataspeed, Intempora and XenomatiX.
Best in Class Perception System – sponsored by Varroc Lighting Systems
Winner: OmniVision Technologies – OAX4010 ISP ASIC
What the judges said… “OmniVision’s OAX4010 ISP ASIC featuring the HDR and LFM Engine (HALE) Combination Algorithm won the Best in Class Perception System as judges noted that LFM + HDR are extremely relevant for viewing and CV based imaging systems. It was deemed highly valuable to the market and supply chain.”
- Silver: General Motors – Transparent Trailer for 2020 GMC Sierra and Silverado HD
- Silver: Innoviz – InnovizOne
Finalists included AdaSky; FICOSA and Audi; iCatch Technology; LeddarTech and Outsight.
Best Automotive Safety System – sponsored by Cruise
Winner: RoboSense – LiDAR Smart Sensor System
What the judges said… “RoboSense’s Smart Sensor System fusion technology provides an innovative safety system to the industry, with a fusion of LiDAR sensor hardware and AI perception algorithm software. The judges deemed it a highly valuable system with strong innovation qualities.”
- Silver: Eyeris – In-vehicle Scene Understanding AI
- Silver: NanoLock Security – NanoLock Cloud-to-Flash Security Solution
Finalists included General Motors and WaveSense.
Most Engaging Content
Winner: IS&T – Autonomous Vehicles and Machines track at Electronic Imaging
What the judges said… “The IS&T Electronic Imaging AVM Conference is seen to provide a much-needed vehicle to present, discuss and disseminate, intellectual, academic and industrial content supporting the autonomous driving industry. It features high originality of content, relevance to industry challenges and is balanced and impartial.”
- Silver: Vehicle Electronics
- Silver: Automoblog.net
Finalists include Dr. Lance Eliot, Driverless Now, Ouster and Siddartha Khastgir.
Most Innovative In-Cabin Application
Winner: Daimler – MBUX Interior Assistant
What the judges said… “The MBUX Interior Assistant is seen as a game changer, as a totally new and innovative approach to intelligent interiors. Instead of learning pre-defined alphabets of the vehicle, intuitive, context-driven functions are seamlessly embedded and intuitively available. It’s anembedded, deep learning-based camera system that is developed from POC status to mass market and represents a unique and leading system in the market.”
- Silver: Eyeris – In-vehicle Scene Understanding AI
- Silver: Seeing Machines – FOVIO Driver Monitoring Technology
Finalists included Intuition Robotics, Phasya and Texas Instruments and D3 Engineering.
Best Validation/Simulation Tool
Winner: Uniquesec – Advanced Frequency-domain automotive radar target simulator (ASGARD1)
What the judges said… “This new approach from Uniquesec for generating radar target signatures by manipulating the spectrum of radar signal was deemed to be highly unique and innovative for testing radars or radar-based advanced drive assistance and safety systems.”
- Silver: TATA ELXSI – AR V2X Tool
- Silver: Automotive Artificial Intelligence (AAI) – ReplicaR
Finalists included AImotive; Cognata; Elektrobit Automotive; Imatest and Furonteer and Metamoto.
Most Innovative Application of Computer Vision
Winner: Algolux – Eos robust perception
What the judges said… “The Algolux approach is very unique and based on deep learning to address problems such as the global optimization problem, including early parts of the imaging pipeline (ISP). The judges felt it provides great value to the market and is a highly innovative application of computer vision and a very worthy winner.”
- Silver: General Motors – Single-shot monocular stixel detection using deep convolutional nets
- Silver: Cognata – Simulation Solution
Finalists include Brodmann17, DeepScale and Eyeris.
Each year all award finalists are automatically shortlisted for the AutoSens Inspiration Award – highlighting the panel’s own desire to recognise an individual or company whose endeavours reach beyond any one area, whose influence will be special and lasting, whose reputation is honest and strong, who we should look at and, in a united voice, celebrate. The AutoSens Inspiration Award for 2019 goes to Edge Case Research.
This year the award categories were updated to align with the changing dynamics of the autonomous vehicle perception industry. This in turn has provided many more opportunities for new and previous entrants to go home with a much coveted AutoSens Award.
“Innovation is as strong as ever in vehicle perception technologies, and we’re proud to provide a platform for industry peers to celebrate not just technical achievements, but the whole gamut of excellence that drives technology forwards.” comments Robert Stead, Managing Director of Sense Media, organisers of the AutoSens Awards.
