Yandex Reveals Its Fourth-Generation Self-Driving Hyundai

Researchers all around the world are working hard on self-driving cars to help people unable to drive themselves to get around and take the roads around the nation and the world safer. Yandex has announced its fourth-generation of self-driving cars that originally developed with Hyundai Mobis. The new self-driving platform operates on the 2020 Hyundai Sonata and joins an existing fleet of over 100 self-driving Toyota Priuses that Yandex operates.

Yandex is currently operating the initial set of self-driving Sonatas on the streets of Moscow. The company says that by the end of the year, it intends to add 100 additional Sonatas to its fleet. It intends to integrate the vehicles into its Robo-taxi program operating in Innopolis, Russia, and it's fleet in Michigan.

Engineers from Yandex and Hyundai Mobis work together, contributing expertise to the design project. The team from Hyundai modified the vehicle's electric control units to interface more efficiently with the Yandex driverless control technology. Engineers from Yandex improved the vehicle sensor set from the third-generation self-driving cars.

The team added three additional camera units with a variety of different focal lengths to bring the total number of cameras on the self-driving vehicle to nine. The engineers also moved the radar system from beneath the bumper to the roof to help the system. Lidar systems on the front fenders were moved to a better location the get them a wider and overlapping field-of-view.

That allows the lidar systems to "see" pedestrians and vehicles in situations with limited side visibility. Yandex says that its partnership with Hyundai Mobis has helped it to create its most advanced self-driving cars yet. The teams are also looking forward to advancing the technology even more in the future.