Next-Gen Self-Driving Volvos To Be Powered By NVIDIA DRIVE Orin

Volvo Cars is expanding its collaboration with NVIDIA to use NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology to power the autonomous driving computer in next generation Volvo models. NVIDIA DRIVE Orin is capable of an unprecedented 254 tera (or 254 trillion) operations per second (TOPS). Volvo Cars aims to be the first car maker to use NVIDIA DRIVE Orin in its next generation models, based on the forthcoming SPA2 modular vehicle architecture. The first car featuring this SoC is the next generation Volvo XC90, which will be revealed next year.

The NVIDIA DRIVE Orin-powered computer is a key element to enable safe and continuously updated, autonomous driving. It will work together with software developed in-house and by Zenseact, Volvo Cars' autonomous driving software development company, as well as backup systems for steering and braking.

The first car featuring this SoC is the next generation Volvo XC90, which will be revealed next year. 

The added computing power and graphics processing delivered by NVIDIA DRIVE Orin enable advanced sensor suites needed for autonomous driving, such as the state-of-the-art LiDAR technology developed by Luminar, another of Volvo Cars' technology partners.

Volvo Cars' SPA2 architecture will be available as hardware-ready for autonomous drive from production start. Its unsupervised autonomous driving feature, called Highway Pilot, will be activated when it is verified to be safe for individual geographic locations and conditions.

The NVIDIA DRIVE Xavier-powered core computer will manage core functionalities inside the car such as base-software, energy management and driver assistance. It works together with the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin-powered autonomous driving computer, which is dedicated to computing-intense work such as vision and LiDAR processing and delivering the high safety integrity level required for autonomous driving.