What is "510 Systems", an unknown company developing Google's fully automated driving car?

ByRoman Boed

Robot car (fully automatic driving car) is one of the most important technologies among Google's projects under development, but companies that support that technology from the ground "510 Systems"The existence of it became clear. What organization is 510 Systems that Google makes its existence concealIEEE SpectrumI am following up the survey.

The Unknown Start-up That Built Google's First Self-Driving Car - IEEE Spectrum
http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/artificial-intelligence/the-unknown-startup-that-built-googles-first-selfdriving-car

There is a technique called "to acquire a technically powerful startup" in the royal road where large companies that earn earlier by "technology" further expand their business. It is well known that the IT industry's male · Google is also actively acquiring companies with technological capabilities, and even recently it is developing a quadruped walking robotBoston · DynamicsAnd develop smart home appliancesNest ProtectOr to manufacture a satelliteSkyboxWe do not know where robust corporate acquisitions will remain.

Not officially revealing that Google, which has been acquiring such a company, has officially announced that it has developed the technology of Google Street View and now is 510 Systems, which is developing an automatic driving car.

510 Systems began with the encounter of two technicians studying robot technology. Anthony Les Bainsky, who was enrolled in the master course at the University of California, Berkeley, participated in a robot contest "DARPA Grand Challenge" sponsored by DARPA in an electric bike that operates automatically in 2005.

Mr. Les Bainsky wearing the second white shirt from the right.


Mr. Les Bainsky won the tournament smoothly, but was defeated by Mr. Sebastian Slan, a German engineer, in regrettable semi-finals. In addition, Mr. Slan who broke Le Boucasy won the DARPA Grand Challenge by winning the finals fight.

After completing the fight at the DARPA Grand Challenge, Mr. Les Bainsky established 510 Systems with team members who joined the robot contest together. 510 Systems added a GPS information and position information acquired from an inertial sensor to data taken with a digital camera immediately after the establishment, and developed a system that connects photographed photos with position information. The camera system that can take this GPS-attached photograph will be sold to Google via GPS-related company which was the only customer of 510 Systems when it was first founded and will be used for shooting Google Street View .

After that, 510 Systems began developing a radar system called "lidar". With this radar system, we succeeded in making a 3D map by 3D scan of the surroundings. Lidar is used not only as a useful technique for collecting map information while moving, but also for music video (MV) received high evaluation from Hollywood as image technology as it can scan solid in real time, made with lidar technology MV will be nominated for Grammy Award.

Radiohead - House of Cards - YouTube


In addition, the laser system lidar developed by 510 Systems was later adopted as the laser system "Lidar" of the Google automatic driving car. Although it is 510 Systems since entrepreneurship, the fact that Google was locked on as a promising company with technology that perfectly matches Google's vision is easily guessed from the content of the technology 510 Systems was developing I can do it.

Mr. Les Bainsky, who can not abandon his dream of developing an automatic driving bike, invited Mr. Slan, who fought in the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2008, to 510 Systems and started developing an automatic driving bike. After that, the automatic driving technique was transplanted from the motorcycle to the automobile, and in the planning of the discovery channel we are challenging to "deliver pizza through San Francisco's babe bridge with automatic driving car". In the challenge, it was said that the rear part of the car hit the wall near the exit and it got damaged.


At last 510 Systems, which was also picked up on television and became known to the public, Google is fully contentious and starts attacking. Google offered to 510 Systems that they wanted to jointly develop an automatic driving car that was developing at that time, guaranteeing a strong financial back-up and seeking participation in the project. Google co-founder Larry Page and Sergei Brin said that the amount column gave a furious appeal to hand over the blank check and form a tag. As a result, 510 Systems and Google decided to jointly develop an automatic driving car that remodeled the Prius.

In joint development 510 Systems is in charge of hardware such as car body and controller, Google is in charge of software control. After all, when five units of automatic operation car "Pribot" remodeled Prius was made, Google proposed to want to buy 510 Systems straight. It was done with 510 Systems engineers who had over 40 people arguing whether to sell 510 Systems to Google, but the opinion was divided into two. Ultimately Google's "inexhaustible wallet" won and in October 2011 510 Systems announced that Google's secret development team "Google XIt was decided to be incorporated into.

ByEddie Codel

Google has acquired about 170 companies over the last 13 years, and it is usual to open an official press conference or to provide a press release, particularly in acquiring companies with promising technology. However, currently we do not announce 510 Systems, which is supposed to participate in the development of Google automatic driving cars, and it is a mystery why Google hides its existence. However, the existence of 510 Systems, which Google does not officially clarify, seems to indirectly tell us that Google's automotive driving efforts are more important than other projects.