Apple has expanded its autonomous self-driving vehicles for a test from 3 to 27. The iPhone makers have got the authority from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to register 24 more cars to hit the roads for self-drive test.
Apple had received the first permit for 3 cars last April. The cars that are made are of model Lexus RX450h SUVs. But Apple’s more focusing on the car’s software and the machine learning required for the development of self-drive rather than the car itself. They are working on the signals and the sensors as well. It is known that Apple is not only using the sensors but the computer hardware too.
The company is accelerating efforts to catch up with the competitors such as Alphabet’s Waymo. Apple has been working behind the scenes for a long time on since February 2015. The project is reportedly named as ‘Titan’. Later in an interview in 2017, CEO Tim Cook went public about the car. He stated that the company is working on the autonomous platform for the cars. This was supported in November 2017, when two Apple scientist wrote a research on a 3D detection system, named as VoxelNet. In that, they stated that they were working on helping autonomous cars avoid collisions with pedestrians and cyclists.
Last December, Apple’s AI director explained that Apple’s software is capable of detecting pedestrians even when they’re hidden by other cars. Apple is reportedly looking into making an attachment software that can make some models of existing vehicles compatible with autonomous tech rather than making full cars of its own.
The release date of the iPhone maker’s car is yet unknown. The company is ranked second best in the self-driving game after Tesla by Navigant Research.