IBM’s artificial intelligent platform, Watson, has buckled up for driverless transportation. Unveiled at Local Motors’ facility in National Harbor was Olli, a Watson-powered driverless electric bus able to hoist twelve passengers around at a time.
Local Motors, a startup that develops 3D-printed cars to drive manufacturing costs down, is developing the new bus in partnership with IBM. Watson allows Olli to learn from and collect transportation data using thirty sensors embedded in the vehicle. Furthermore, passengers will be able to converse with Olli through Watson and ask where they are going or how Olli works. Olli will listen and respond to passengers’ requests (“Olli, can you take me to [some restaurant].”) to ensure a better ride. Watson is leveraging four developer APIs to make passenger-to-vehicle communication feasible: Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, Entity Extraction and Text to Speech.
Harriet Green, General Manager, IBM Watson Internet of Things, Commerce & Education stated:
IBM is excited to work with Local Motors to infuse IBM Watson IoT cognitive computing capabilities into Olli, exploring the art of what’s possible in a world of self-driving vehicles and providing a unique, personalized experience for every passenger while helping to revolutionize the future of transportation for years to come.
Olli has opened up for rides in Washington, DC and could be on the way to Miami and Las Vegas. In fact, Miami-Dade County is exploring a pilot program to bring Olli onto public roads. The small-scale test could lead to Olli (or similar vehicles) revolutionizing transportation and how passengers interact with vehicles.
“Improving the sustainability of local transportation networks as part of a wider goal to create more vibrant, livable, sustainable cities within Miami-Dade County, and improve the quality of life for residents is our top priority,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez in a release.
Source: IBM
The post IBM Watson Provides Brains For Driverless Electric Bus, Olli appeared first on Simplebotics.