Hyundai CRADLE, the investment arm of Hyundai, is investing in allegro.ai. With the investment, the carmaker wants to accelerate the development of the company's technology. Hyundai aims to use the technology to enhance customer safety.
allegro.ai is a startup that has developed an end-to-end product lifecycle management (PLM) solution for products combining deep learning with computer vision. These include autonomous vehicles, but also drones, logistics applications and security systems. The combination of computer vision and deep learning makes it possible to analyse images to draw conclusions from observations.
Recognising patterns
Deep learning is a form of artificial intelligence (AI), where an algorithm is trained by having it search for patterns in a huge data set. For example, by looking at hundreds of thousands or even millions of photos of a dog, a deep learning algorithm can, over time, identify patterns that enable it to recognise a dog. Over time, this enables the algorithm to point out a dog in a photo. Characteristic of a deep learning algorithm is the fact that the algorithm keeps learning and over time gets smarter and smarter.
Such a dataset consists of images or videos provided with annotations. These annotations are used to identify and classify the images. Because a dataset soon consists of hundreds of thousands or even millions of images, annotation is a time-consuming and error-prone task.
Guide algorithm development
allegro.ai has developed a solution that guides the lifecycle of a deep learning algorithm from start to finish. For instance, the PLM platform allows users to build datasets and refine them to train algorithms. To this end, functionalities available include automated image annotation. In addition, the platform makes it possible to automate tasks related to training the algorithm.
Results from different versions of an algorithm can be compared in real-time, which helps to further refine the algorithm. It is also possible to distribute new versions of the algorithm to devices via the platform.
Accelerate development
Hyundai wants to harness deep learning computer vision technologies from companies like allegro.ai to provide a safer driving experience for customers. By investing in the startup, the carmaker wants to accelerate the development of the company's solution. The company wants to deploy the platform to improve the navigation capability and real-time decision-making of autonomous driving systems.
"Regardless of whether a company is developing autonomous vehicles, drones, security or any other application, allegro.ai helps them manage their datasets and build deep learning-based solutions while having the assurance of keeping full control over their data," explains Nir Bar-lev, CEO and co-founder of allegro.ai.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: Hyundai (pictured)
Source: allegro.ai
