Huawei, RoboSense join group pushing open-source autonomous driving technology

Telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies, its semiconductor subsidiary HiSilicon and RoboSense, a maker of lidar sensors used in driverless cars, have become the first Chinese companies to help establish an international non-profit group that supports open-source autonomous driving projects.

The three firms are among the more than 20 founding members of the Autoware Foundation, which aims to promote collaboration between corporate and academic research efforts in autonomous driving technology, according to a statement from the group on Monday.

The foundation is an outgrowth of Autoware.AI, an open-source autonomous driving platform that was started by Nagoya University associate professor Shinpei Kato in 2015.

That platform is supported by the largest open-source community focused on autonomous driving, which includes more than 2,300 contributors at online coding forum GitHub, according to the foundation.

It said Autoware.AI has found widespread and international adoption, as it is used by more than 100 companies and runs on more than 30 vehicles in more than 20 different countries. Courses using Autoware are also offered in five countries.

Since 2017, Autoware.AI has been qualified to run on driverless vehicles on public roads in Japan.