News

July 2023 robotics investments total US $2.1 billion

Source: Robotics Business Review, August 31, 2023 [1]
Robotics investment for July 2023 reached $1.9 billion, coming from 48 funding rounds. As of the end of July, total 2023 funding comes to approximately $8 billion.

North American robot orders drop for 2nd quarter in a row

Source: Robotics Business Review, August 31, 2023 [2]
37% fewer robots were purchased in April through June of 2023 than during the same period of 2022, according to A3’s latest report.

FPGA boosts detection area for automotive camera

Source: eeNews Europe, September 5, 2023 [3]
The latest forward looking stereo automotive camera from Hitachi Astemo is used for adaptive cruise control and autonomous emergency braking. It uses the AMD Automotive XA Zynq UltraScale+ multi-processor system-on-a-chip (MPSoC) to provide both stereo and monocular image processing in the camera, enabling it to detect objects over 120 degrees, three times wider than its previous-generation cameras. The MPSoC combines stereo camera image-processing algorithms with artificial intelligence to provide object detection that will also enable video-based driver-assistance systems.

Why is the China chip fund preparing its largest funding round yet?

Source: TechHQ, September 6, 2023 [4]
The Big Fund plans a new state-backed investment fund to raise US$40 billion for China's semiconductor sector.

Preparing for the impact of Intel semiconductor chip plants in Licking County

Source: WOSU News, September 6, 2023 [5]
The $20 billion Intel factory complex in Licking County is generating thousands of jobs and boosting the economy, but residents living near the project face noise, traffic issues, and construction-related headaches.

RISC-V 64 bit IP for high performance

Source: Semiwiki, September 30, 2023 [6]
RISC-V, an Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), has gained commercial importance since its 2015 release, attracting numerous IP vendors offering various RTL cores. Semidynamics, founded in 2016, offers customizable RISC-V IPs for compute challenges requiring high bandwidth and performance.

Krone and Lemken rely on software from Apex.AI for autonomous farming machines

Source: The Robot Report, August 30, 2023 [7]
Apex.AI, a safety-certified software developer, has partnered with Krone and Lemken to develop commercial-ready autonomous farming systems. The 'Combined Powers' concept vehicle, developed by Krone and Lemken, is transitioning from prototype to series production using Apex.AI's SDK.

Nvidia shares grace Superchip benchmarks

Source: HPCwire, September 6, 2023 [8]
Nvidia has released initial benchmarks for their Grace CPU Superchip, providing background on the new HPC processor. These application-based benchmarks are helpful but should be taken with a grain of salt.

Papers

Hardware accelerators in autonomous driving

Source: arXiv, August 16, 2023 [9]
This paper discusses the use of hardware accelerators in autonomous vehicles for processing large amounts of data and making decisions. It highlights the importance of these accelerators for meeting the performance requirements for advanced autonomous driving tasks, offering recommendations for researchers and practitioners.

You can't see me: Physical removal attacks on LiDAR-based autonomous vehicles driving frameworks

Source: USENIX, August 10, 2023 [10]
The research presents a method called Physical Removal Attacks (PRA) that uses laser-based spoofing techniques to selectively remove LiDAR point cloud data of obstacles from autonomous vehicles' obstacle detectors. This method, invisible to the human eye, achieves a 45◦ attack capability against three popular AV obstacle detectors and a 92.7% success rate in moving vehicle scenarios.

Previous Hardware Acceleration in Robotics Newsletters

Past ROS 2 Hardware Acceleration Working Group meetings

  1. Kara, D. (2023, August 31). July 2023 robotics investments total US $2.1 billion. Robotics Business Review. https://www.roboticsbusinessreview.com/investment/july-2023-robotics-investments-approaches-the-2-billion-mark/?spMailingID=97497&puid=2502618&E=2502618&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=97497 ↩︎

  2. Wessling, B. (2023, August 31). North American robot orders drop for 2nd quarter in a row. Robotics Business Review. https://www.roboticsbusinessreview.com/news/a3-north-american-robot-orders-drop-for-2nd-quarter-in-a-row/?spMailingID=97497&puid=2502618&E=2502618&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=97497 ↩︎

  3. Flaherty, N. (2023, September 5). FPGA boosts detection area for automotive camera. eeNews Europe. https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/fpga-boosts-detection-area-for-automotive-camera/ ↩︎

  4. Kaur, D. (2023, September 6). Why is the China chip fund preparing its largest funding round yet? TechHQ. https://techhq.com/2023/09/what-does-china-planning-its-biggest-state-backed-chip-fund-mean/ ↩︎

  5. Preparing for the impact of Intel semiconductor chip plants in Licking County. (2023, September 6). WOSU News. https://news.wosu.org/show/all-sides-with-ann-fisher/2023-09-06/preparing-for-the-impact-of-intel-semiconductor-chip-plants-in-licking-county ↩︎

  6. Payne, D. (2023, August 30). RISC-V 64 bit IP for high performance. Semiwiki. Retrieved September 6, 2023, from https://semiwiki.com/ip/333718-risc-v-64-bit-ip-for-high-performance/ ↩︎

  7. Oitzman, M. (2023, August 30). Krone and Lemken rely on software from Apex.AI for autonomous farming machines. The Robot Report. https://www.therobotreport.com/krone-and-lemken-rely-on-software-from-apex-ai-for-autonomous-farming-machines/?spMailingID=97181&puid=2502618&E=2502618&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=97181 ↩︎

  8. Eadline, D. (2023, September 6). Nvidia shares grace Superchip benchmarks. HPCwire. https://www.hpcwire.com/2023/09/06/nvidia-shares-grace-superchip-benchmarks/ ↩︎

  9. Power, K., Deva, S., Wang, T., Li, J., & Eising, C. (2023, August 16). Hardware accelerators in autonomous driving. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2308/2308.06054.pdf ↩︎

  10. Cao, Y., Hrushikesh, S., Naghavi, P., Sugawara, T., Morley, Z., & Rampazzi, S. (2023, August 10). You can't see me: Physical removal attacks on LiDAR-based autonomous vehicles driving frameworks. USENIX. https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/presentation/cao ↩︎