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China’s Whale Dynamic releases products for autonomous driving by integrating Kudan 3D-Lidar SLAM and won a project in Tier1 City in China

07.11.2022

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Kudan Inc. (headquartered in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; CEO Daiu Ko, hereafter “Kudan”), a leading provider of Artificial Perception / SLAM technology across a variety of applications, is pleased to announce that its business partner Whale Dynamic Co.Ltd. (headquartered in Shenzhen, China; CEO David Yufei Chang, hereafter “Whale Dynamic”) released the products of autonomous delivery vehicles and associated HD map toolchains by integrating Kudan 3D-Lidar SLAM technology. Two companies have also won a project in Tier1 city in China to deliver the released products, and will further partner to accelerate sales to the global market and expand sales in China.

The market demand for autonomous driving is forecasted to continuously grow in the next ten years. Especially for autonomous delivery, there is a rapidly increasing social need due to continuous urbanization and aging population, the rise of E-commerce, and the shortage of delivery workers in some countries. However, the maturity of available autonomous delivery vehicles/robots in the market is not satisfactory, primarily when operating on urban roads with complex traffic situations.

With this background, Kudan and Whale Dynamic have been in technology collaboration since 2021 to develop market-leading products for autonomous driving and today, Whale Dynamic released the following products, where Kudan’s high-performance 3D-Lidar SLAM technology is used. With proven high accuracy and robustness even in dynamic environments such as urban public roads, Kudan SLAM technology enables accurate HD map creation and precise position understanding of the delivery vehicle during the operation.

  • Mapping hardware kit and software toolchain (Refer to Figure 1) for HD semantic map generation, with the capability to generate dense point cloud and make up into semantic HD map with centimeter-level accuracy. The generated HD map support various formats, and can be applied for various applications in autonomous driving domain.
  • Multi-Purpose Autonomous Vehicle (MPAV, refer to Figure 2) for autonomous delivery, with the capability to carry out its daily tasks on urban public roads and operate in fully-electric. Due to its sophisticated design, detailed operational scenario design and extensive road testing, MPAV can be applied for various use cases.

Figure 1 Mapping HW Kit and SW Toolchain

Figure 2 Multi-Purpose Autonomous Vehicle – WD1

The release also includes Drivable Test Vehicle (DTV, refer to Figure 3), which is developed to let the developers and researchers of autonomous service enterprises or academic institutions to validate autonomous driving technology with better customization flexibility. The vehicle enables both autonomous driving and manual driving in parallel, and ensure quick and practical autonomous driving validation in more reasonable cost.

Figure 3 Drivable Test Vehicle

The details of these products can be found below for reference:
Whale Dynamic Product Reference

In conjunction with the product release, the parties have also successfully won a purchase order for an autonomous driving project in China, and are working closely towards project completion.

Two companies will also further strengthen their collaboration and partner in the sales of these products to Chinese, Japanese and other global markets, leveraging each company’s networks and sales channels to fulfill the enormous needs of autonomous driving and driverless delivery, as well as to promote the resolution the social issues.

Daiu Ko, CEO & of Kudan, commented: “We are excited to see the product release of autonomous driving and associated mapping tools from Whale Dynamic with adopting Kudan’s 3D-SLAM technology. This is the outcome of close collaboration of both companies, and we look forward to further expanding our partnership in both technology collaboration and business development in the global market.”

David Yufei Chang, CEO and founder of Whale Dynamic, commented: “The close collaboration with Kudan brings us magnificent possibilities to create a more competitive autonomous driving solution for the world. The ongoing partnership is technological pioneering in the market and promising for future mass volume deployment. Kudan is our valuable partner, and we look forward to further collaborating in technology development and global business expansion.”

We will continue to provide the update of our collaboration and new projects of product delivery in the future.

About Kudan Inc.
Kudan (Tokyo Stock Exchange securities code: 4425) is a deep tech research and development company specializing in algorithms for artificial perception (AP). As a complement to artificial intelligence (AI), AP functions allow machines to develop autonomy. Currently, Kudan is using its high-level technical innovation to explore business areas based on its own milestone models established for deep tech which provide wide-ranging impact on several major industrial fields.
For more information, please refer to Kudan’s website at https://www.kudan.io/.

■Company Details
Name: Kudan Inc.
Securities Code: 4425
Representative: CEO Daiu Ko

About Whale Dynamic Co.Ltd.
Whale Dynamic is a fast-growing autonomous driving technology company in Shenzhen, China, focused on autonomous driving and intelligent traffic applications. The company holds many fundamental technology patents in vehicle autonomy, from the fields of multi-sensor fusion perception, spatial-temporal synchronization, vehicle embedded system, HD mapping, centimeter level localization and others. Its technology has been widely used by many transportation providers, tier1 companies, universities, and other institutions. Unlike most AD solution companies which only retrofit passenger vehicles for autonomy, Whale Dynamic has used its existing full-stack passenger vehicle autonomy technology in self-developed driverless autonomous vehicles, and secured rich operational use cases by sophisticated design and extensive road testing.
For more information, please refer to Whale Dynamic’s website at http://www.whaledynamic.com.

■Company Details
Name: Whale Dynamic Co.Ltd.
Representative: CEO and Founder David Yufei Chang

■For more details, please contact below

Kudan Inc.
Email: contact2@kudan.eu

Whale Dynamic Co.Ltd.
Email: coop@whaledynamic.com

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