BMW Partnered with IBM to Develop Autonomous Future Cars

People have been waiting for BMW’s fully-autonomous car to launch for quite some time. We can expect the same to happen most probably in the mid 2017 or till the end of the next year. Under the new merger between BMW and IBM to make this endeavour come to life, IBM has set up its new Watson IoT Global Headquarter in Munich, Germany for the very purpose of incorporating Artificial Intelligence and IoT features in the hybrid cars of top Automobile manufacturers like BMW, Audi and Daimler. BMW especially is very much interested in developing cars with conversational interfaces and those which are equipped with Machine Learning to fully assist drivers while driving. Machine Learning and Data Mining Applications had proven themselves to be magical for human existence over the past decade or so.

Artificial Intelligence and IoT Together to Make the Difference

The rumour is that the new technology based on Artificial Intelligence and IoT will be tested on BMW’s i8 Hybrid Cars. Yesterday only, IBM announced that it will be partnering with BMW to perform Research and Development work in order to incorporate automation and driver-sense in the upcoming future vehicles. IBM said that it will be integrating Watson sensors with the BMW’s i8 hybrid vehicles and also Watson’s Machine Learning computing abilities to accomplish autonomous abilities. The IBM Watson’s capabilities to record the car data and thus new systems incorporated can utilise that data to personalize with a specific driver or a passenger by reading their daily car operating behaviour.

BMW and IBM’s Watson IoT Cognitive Research to Develop Cars of the Future

According to the deal IBM is going to hack four of BMW’s i8 hybrid sports cars at its Watson Iot HQ located in Munich, Germany. It will then turn them into prototypes that will run on IBM’s Bluemix Cloud.

Harriet Green, IBM’s global head of IoT said this in a recent statement - “We don’t want to replace humans”. In order to build self-driving cars, there a lot of efforts being made by many automobile industry giants but IBM made it clear that it is not keen on building full-out autonomous cars and that it will work on building systems that will allow vehicles to perform more efficiently and to make them work better.

Six Areas where IBM and BMW are focussing in developing Future Cars

Credit: BMW

#1. Self-Healing : If there comes any problem while on the run, the car could diagnose and fix the problem by itself.

#2.  Self-Socializing : The vehicle will automatically connect with the other vehicles in the vicinity to communicate.

#3. Self-Learning : Vehicle Owners will be informed automatically through the incorporated Artificial Intelligence System about the Driving and Maintenance related issues.

#4. Fully Autonomous : Driverless operation of cars upto a certain extent with very little or no human interference.

#5. Self-Figuring : The vehicle automatically will detect the driver’s behaviour and will adapt to it by recognising patterns of user’s driving. (e.g. a particular gas station or a most-used position of the seat).

#6. Self-Integrating : The vehicle will give instructions by itself to connect to various IT gadgets and Devices.

Also Read : Artificial Intelligence To Identify Your Brain Age using MRI Scans

Daimler and Audi are next on the list of IBM’s Watson IoT to infuse Artificial Intelligence and IoT to make their vehicles go autonomous and smart. Let’s hope for BMW’s autonomous cars to roll out first in the market, most probably at the end of 2017. We will definitely wait for that to happen asap. So, keep yourself updated about that.

Machine Learning and Data Mining developments have been huge in the recent past considering the various innovations like these happening time and again.