ON Semiconductor and Nvidia to develop cloud-based autonomous vehicle simulators

ON Semiconductor, a US-based semiconductor company, will be leveraging its sophisticated image sensor modelling technology to provide real-time data to Nvidia's ‘Nvidia Drive Constellation simulation’ platform, an open, cloud-based platform that performs the bit-accurate simulation for large-scale, hardware-in-the-loop testing and validation of autonomous vehicles.

ON Semiconductor’s image sensor model receives both scene information and control signals from ‘Drive Constellation’ to calculate and output a real-time image based on the inputs. It then transmits the simulated image back to Drive Constellation for processing. The complex sensor model will utilise all critical parameters in the path from converting photons to digital output (e.g. Quantum efficiency, Noise, Gain, Analog-to-Digital Conversion, Black Level Correction and more) to provide an accurate output of a real-world image sensor.

At the ongoing GPU Technology Conference that will conclude on March 21, ON Semiconductor will be demonstrating its advanced sensor simulation model as well as a new tool developed for object detection. ON Semiconductor offers a portfolio of automotive CMOS image sensors ranging from 1 MP (megapixel) to 12 MP with the ‘Drive Pegasus’ platform.

“ON Semiconductor is excited to be one of Nvidia’s ecosystem partners working on its Drive Constellation platform,” said Ross Jatou, vice president and general manager, automotive sensing division, ON Semiconductor. “Our innovative, scalable image sensor solutions address the stringent and evolving needs of autonomous driving, so to be an integral part of such an important and enabling program that will help accelerate progress to safe, robust driverless vehicles, is really important to us.”

“The Nvidia Drive platform delivers a full hardware and software ecosystem for developers and is supported by specialists in an array of different technologies and disciplines," said Zvi Greenstein, general manager at Nvidia. “ON Semiconductor’s advanced imaging solutions have demonstrated class-leading performance and their innovative image sensor model can benefit those engaged in the groundbreaking work to take autonomous driving from concepts under test to mainstream reality.”