On 17th PST/18th JST December, The Autoware Foundation held its Annual General Assembly. More than 50 individuals from 32 member organizations all over the world joined to share their excitement and aspirations about Autoware, the first and widely-used Open Source Autonomous Driving Software.

Commitment and Aspirations from New Board of Directors

In December 2020, five new Board of Directors were elected: Shinpei Kato (Tier IV), Yang Zhang (Linaro/96Boards), Jim Liu (ADLINK Technology), Girish Shirasat (ARM), and Bobby Hambrick (Hexagon/AutonomouStuff). The new board members shared their commitment to lead and drive the Autoware Foundation to the next stage, by making Autoware available to everyone and expanding its ecosystem.

The Autoware Foundation Strategic Goals

The Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) was established in August 2020, to facilitate strategic direction setting and Autoware ecosystem development.

Larry Dimitrievski (Tata Consultancy Services), Christian John (Tier IV) and Joe Speed (ADLINK Technology) introduced the SPC workplan for next year, mainly focused on mid/long-term strategy development (e.g. ODD roadmap based on market insights, project proposals for Autoware.IO), ecosystem expansion (e.g. collaboration with open source communities and Universities), and marketing (e.g. networking events, website update).

Technical Recap of 2020 and Plan for 2021

Josh Whitely, Autoware Foundation Software Architect and member of the Technical Steering Committee (TSC), reviewed this year’s significant achievements by the TSC, culminating with the Autonomous Valet Parking (AVP) Demo based on the Autoware.Auto OSS.

One of the next Operational Design Domain (ODD) which will be addressed in the Autoware.Auto project is Cargo Delivery, with work kicked off by the TSC very soon. This development will add flexibility and additional capabilities to Autoware, as well as promote implementations with real world applications and business use cases.

Operational Achievements 2020 and next steps

The Operations Committee (OC), chaired by Daisuke Tanaka (Tier IV), announced the Autoware Foundation membership growth and celebrated achieving over 50 member organizations in 2020 4Q, up from 21 members in 2018. In order to further accelerate membership growth, the OC will continue to strengthen communications/collaborations amongst the Autoware Foundation membership.

Guest Speaker: US Department of Transportation

The CARMA program is the Federal Highway Association’s (FHWA) initiative to improve the transportation systems by leveraging autonomous driving technology and V2X technology, and Autoware is utilized as the autonomous driving software in the CARMA vehicles, including passenger cars and semi-trailers. Taylor Lochrane from The US Department of Transportation shared the challenges and experiences in applying Autoware to real world use cases and transportation problems.

Guest Speaker: Ziiko Robotics

Ziiko is focused on developing an autonomous, mobility platform for logistics. They have recently joined the Autoware Foundation as a premium member, and are seeking opportunities to leverage Autoware in their solution. Brent Shedd, CEO of Ziiko, shared his view on the exciting business opportunities emerging based on the Cargo Delivery ODD.

Guest Speaker: F1TENTH

F1TENTH Foundation and The Autoware Foundation are pleased to announce that we have entered into a partnership. Seeing the synergies in many areas of the F1TENTH platform & Autoware, as well as F1TENTH’s University ecosystem & the Autoware Foundation’s Autonomous capability, Rahul Mangharam shared his enthusiasm to collaborate and grow the communities together.

We enjoyed gathering together despite the world-wide time differences. Many thanks to the attendees – we’re looking forward to seeing you again soon!