Tag Archives: Ziv Binyamini

Foretellix automated driving solution wins Volvo Group backing

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A division of Volvo Group has backed the latest round of funding from Foretellix, a platform provider for automating the testing, verification and validation for automated driving systems (ADAS and AV).

The latest round of funding has seen the company raise $32 million, bringing its total raised capital to over $50 million, allowing Foretellix to address the growing demand for its platform and products, Ziv Binyamini, CEO and co-founder of Foretellix, says.

Earlier this year, Volvo Autonomous Solutions signed an agreement with Foretellix to, they said, jointly address the challenges of large-scale verification of autonomous driving solutions on highways and confined areas, such as mines.

The latest funding round was led by MoreTech Ventures, with participation from several strategic investors, including Volvo Group Venture Capital, Nationwide, NI and Japan-Israel High Tech Ventures.

Foretellix was founded in 2018 by a team of verification and validation pioneers with a mission to make automated driving systems safe and efficient. Foretellix says it uses a quantifiable approach to safety and hyper-automation to create and test all possible scenarios these systems may encounter, along with big data analytics to ensure the safety and completeness of the testing processes.

“This advanced platform is used throughout the development cycle, from the requirements stage through product development, verification and validation,” the company said. “Foretellix ensures safety and productivity while reducing development cost and time to-deployment.”

Foretellix says it is experiencing a rapid increase in demand for its platform. This demand comes from leading OEMs and Tier 1 companies developing ADAS and AV products, both on and off-road. The company is now commercially engaged with dozens of the largest names in the automotive industry, including Volvo Group and DENSO Corp, it said.

Martin Witt, VP and Head of Volvo Group Venture Capital, said: “We look for start-ups that are building the future with technological developments that will transform the transport industry. We believe that with Foretellix’s advanced test automation tools and expertise, we can deploy current and future ADS. We have the same clear goal to infuse automation and metrics into the verification and validation process with open standards. The investment and ongoing partnership is a base for increased safety of our leading-edge automated driving systems.”

Foretellix expertise to speed up Volvo Autonomous Solutions’ time to market

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Volvo Autonomous Solutions has signed an agreement with verification company Foretellix to, they say, jointly address the challenges of large-scale verification of autonomous driving solutions on highways and confined areas, such as mines.

Volvo’s partnership with Foretellix will see the two firms jointly create a Coverage Driven Verification solution for autonomous driving solutions. The solution will enable massive scale testing of millions of different scenarios, which will validate autonomous vehicles and machines dealing with anything they might encounter within their specified Operational Design Domain (ODD), according to Volvo.

The partnership will focus on providing high levels of safety and productivity of Volvo Autonomous Solution vehicles and machines.

The ability of the solution to orchestrate large scale simulation and conduct the big data analysis required will lead to a substantial reduction in costs and time to market, ensuring faster operational readiness and the ability to safely scale up the system across multiple sites and ODDs, according to Volvo.

Foretellix, Volvo says, is a pioneer in the commercialisation of coverage-driven methodologies for automated driving systems verification. It developed a novel verification platform that uses intelligent automation and big data analysis tools that coordinate and monitor millions of driving scenarios to expose bugs and edge cases, including the most extreme examples.

Volvo Autonomous Solutions will jointly adapt Foretellix’s verification system for applications in mining and quarrying, with both companies using the Open Measurable Scenario Description Language (M-SDL) created by Foretellix. M-SDL simplifies the capture, reuse and sharing of scenarios, and can specify any mix of scenarios and operating conditions, to identify previously unknown hazards, according to Volvo.

Magnus Liljeqvist, Global Technology Manager for Volvo Autonomous Solutions, said: “Volvo Autonomous Solutions believes in a collaborative verification concept, one that uses open standards. The partnership with Foretellix gives us access to the state-of-the-art verification tools and accelerating our time to market.”

Ziv Binyamini, CEO and co-Founder of Foretellix, said: “This partnership is a significant milestone for the industry as it is the first time that large scale Coverage Driven Verification will be used for verification of ADS in confined areas. Our partnership will combine the expertise of the two companies and set a new standard in the verification of automated driving systems, boosting both safety and productivity.”

In 2020, both companies conducted a successful pre-study that evaluated the Foretellix portfolio and its potential value in confined areas.

Yesterday, Volvo Construction Equipment confirmed it was building the world’s first test and demonstration area for electric, autonomous transport solutions at its Customer Center in Eskilstuna, Sweden.