Deutsche Post DHL Group Selects NVIDIA DRIVE PX for Autonomous Delivery Truck Fleet

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Marketwire 10-Oct-2017 5:59 AM
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MUNICH, GERMANY -- (Marketwired) -- 10/10/17 -- GTC Europe - NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today announced that Deutsche Post DHL Group (DPDHL), the world's largest mail and logistics company, and ZF, one of the world's largest automotive suppliers, have partnered together to deploy a test fleet of autonomous delivery trucks, starting in 2018.
DPDHL will outfit electric light trucks with the ZF ProAI self-driving system, based on NVIDIA DRIVE PX technology, for automating package transportation and delivery, including the "last mile" of deliveries. Taking packages from a central point to their final destinations is considered the most complex and costliest aspect of courier and e-commerce deliveries.
DPDHL currently has a fleet of 3,400 StreetScooter electric delivery vehicles, which can be equipped with ZF's multiple sensors, including cameras, lidar and radar, that feed into the ZF ProAI system. This can enable the vehicle to use AI to understand its environment, plan a safe path forward, proceed along a selected route and park itself -- ensuring deliveries can be made with greater accuracy and safety, and at lower cost.
"The development of autonomous delivery vehicles demonstrates how AI and deep learning are also reshaping the commercial transportation industry," said Jensen Huang, NVIDIA founder and CEO. "As online shopping continues to explode, and the shortage of truck drivers becomes more dire, AI-enabled vehicles will be key to providing last-mile delivery services."
"Research and development of ecological, economical and efficient transportation will bring dramatic changes to the logistics industry," said Jrgen Gerdes, member of the Board of Management at Deutsche Post AG. "Partnering with NVIDIA and ZF will enable us to responsibly support this development, benefit from it and reinforce our position as the industry's innovation leader."
"In its StreetScooter fleet, Deutsche Post DHL is taking its next step with our current and future generation of surround sensor technology and ZF ProAI artificial intelligence brain powered by NVIDIA," said Stefan Sommer, CEO of ZF. "ZF ProAI is the brain between our autonomous driving sensor set to detect and understand the environment, and our motion control based on outstanding mechanical competence -- the entire system follows our 'see - think - act' approach. In supply logistics and on the last mile where autonomous driving has tremendous benefits, goods can be delivered independent of the time of the day and delivery staff, with minimal noise and emissions, thus significantly reducing traffic congestion in city centers."
To develop these AI delivery vehicles, DPDHL has already configured its data center with the NVIDIA DGX-1 AI supercomputer for training its neural networks. It will then run its deep learning models on the truck's NVIDIA DRIVE PX platform. A prototype delivery vehicle unveiled today uses six cameras, one radar and two lidar -- all feeding into the NVIDIA DRIVE PX.
Demonstrations of the DPDHL delivery prototype are taking place at the GPU Technology Conference in Munich through October 12.
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About NVIDIA NVIDIA 's (NASDAQ: NVDA) invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined modern computer graphics and revolutionized parallel computing. More recently, GPU deep learning ignited modern AI -- the next era of computing -- with the GPU acting as the brain of computers, robots and self-driving cars that can perceive and understand the world. More information at http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/.
Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the impact, benefits, abilities and performance of the ZF ProAI system and NVIDIA DRIVE PX platform; the use of AI in self-driving vehicles to increase performance, efficiency and safety; the impacts of AI and deep learning on the commercial transportation industry; and DPDHL's plans to use NVIDIA technology in its self-driving vehicles are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market acceptance of our products or our partners' products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended July 30, 2017. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company's website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.
2017 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, DGX-1 and NVIDIA DRIVE are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability and specifications are subject to change without notice.
For further information, contact: Fazel Adabi PR Manager for AutomotiveNVIDIA Corporation (408) 486-8701 fadabi@nvidia.com
Source: NVIDIA