Civil Maps’ Migration to ArmR Drives Autonomous Vehicle Development Towards Greater Scalability

Civil Maps, a pioneer in edge-based HD mapping and localization for autonomous vehicles, announced that the company has ported its vehicular cognition stack to run on the Arm® family of processors. Arm® is the world’s leading licensor of automotive-grade system-on-chips (SoCs) and system-on-modules (SoMs), with more than 1,000 technology partners. The move by Civil Maps marks a disruptive paradigm shift in which self-driving car developers can leverage an Arm SoC with Civil Maps embedded software for enabling vehicles to navigate safely and localize on the road. Currently, no other competing solutions, which commonly rely on x86 and/or GPU-based architectures, offer developers a path to production-scale vehicle autonomy.

“Civil Maps is excited to take a leadership position in accelerating a game-changing Arm-based workflow for self-driving carmakers,” said Sravan Puttagunta, CEO and Co-founder of Civil Maps. “By reducing complexity, cost, in-car real estate, and power consumption, we are all now a step closer towards freedom from many of the systemic operational bottlenecks that have greatly encumbered AV development today.”

The Arm-powered HD maps and localization solution, which further enhances the already streamlined, lightweight performance of the Civil Maps platform, will enable greater levels of reliability and efficiency while overcoming chronic limitations of power consumption, CPU, storage, and network requirements. The timing of the transition coincides with the automotive industry’s overwhelming adoption of Arm technology for electronic control units (ECU) that manage an expanding range of in-vehicle systems. Civil Maps’ migration means that OEMs will be able to leverage the company’s cutting-edge technology without changing their existing supply chain.

“Committing to an Arm-based architecture will greatly assist Civil Maps in seamlessly commercializing their technology to leading automakers,” said Tim Dawkins, Autonomous Car Specialist at SBD Automotive. “This approach will allow the OEMs and technology companies involved with autonomous development to implement a scalable localization platform with lean compute requirements.”

As part of the transition, Civil Maps has optimized core components of its algorithms and software for the Arm CPU architecture, known for its high-volume manufacturing process and auto-grade certifications. The efficiency of Civil Maps’ exclusive Fingerprint Base Map™ technology allows the company to leverage the Arm Neural Network accelerators in these low-power, low-cost SoCs.

ABOUT CIVIL MAPS

Civil Maps develops the world’s first, edge-based HD mapping and localization platform for self-driving cars. With novel techniques in advanced sensor fusion, fingerprint localization in six degrees of freedom (6DoF), and Edge Mapping™, we allow automotive OEMs, mapping providers, and mobility companies to accelerate their autonomous driving initiatives in a manner that is significantly more cost-effective and efficient than conventional solutions. We are pioneering safety-critical technologies that empower vehicles to build, share, and update a mental model of the world while continuously determining their location. From our headquarters in San Francisco and offices in Asia, Civil Maps works with the most innovative carmakers and partners around the world to bring fully self-driving vehicles to market. Founded in 2015, the Company have received funding from Ford Motor Company, SAIC, Motus Ventures, the Stanford-StartX Fund, and many other distinguished investors. To learn more about Civil Maps, visit www.civilmaps.com