Weather and road surface state data added to autonomous vehicle platform

Vaisala’s decades of experience in weather sensing, data collection, and analysis will ensure accurate road surface state information is delivered to connected and autonomous vehicles via Renovo’s real-time and edge-centric platform.

Vaisala and Renovo, a global automotive software company, have announced Vaisala will be providing data to the Renovo Platform for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Initially, Vaisala’s road surface state dataset will be made available through Renovo’s system.

Once implemented, automated vehicle fleet deployments using the Renovo Platform will be able to seamlessly access Vaisala’s enhanced road surface state data and environmental intelligence. This data, coupled with Vaisala’s algorithms and analytics systems, will provide critical observational intelligence to help CAVs operate safely in any weather condition. Vaisala will receive vehicle data from Renovo equipped cars to its road condition model.

“The Renovo platform offers a new approach for transport companies and OEM’s supporting autonomous driving to develop, test, and operate the most advanced fleets,” said Markus Melin, Vice President, Vaisala Digital. “We are investing heavily into our Vaisala Digital business in which our industry-leading road weather solutions play a key role. These are highly recognised in particular by automotive OEMs, and we are delighted to offer our new road surface intelligence and observation capabilities via the Renovo Platform.”

Through the Vaisala integration, the Renovo Platform will deliver unprecedented access to environmental observation datasets. CAVs will receive prevailing and predicted road weather conditions from multiple sources, including reference grade stationary sensors, mobile road weather stations (including Vaisala’s Mobile Detector MD30), and sources like visual road state via computer vision. Vaisala’s algorithms and analytics systems then combine all observation data, couple it with weather forecast and road information, and communicate a near real-time view and reliable dataset of upcoming road state to CAVs.

“Vaisala is a leading creator of weather and road surface state information technology making them an important addition to the Renovo ecosystem,” said Chris Heiser, CEO and co-founder of Renovo. “Not only does Vaisala provide more precise road grip information, their vast network of weather and road sensors offer a new depth of information for CAVs to help them operate safely in any weather condition.”

Renovo’s platform is already powering highly automated vehicle fleets on public and private
roads including Voyage.auto. Vaisala joins the Renovo platform along with a growing list of leading companies in the automated mobility sector including Samsung, Verizon, Seagate, Velodyne LiDAR, NVIDIA, Intel, Parsons, INRIX, Argus Cyber Security, Carmera, Affectiva, Seoul Robotics, Phantom Auto, EdgeConneX. Understand.ai, Metamoto, and Bestmile.