VisLab is an Italian company working on computer vision and environmental perception for vehicular applications. It was founded in the early 90s as a research laboratory at

University of Parma The University of Parma ( it, Università degli Studi di Parma, UNIPR) is a public university in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is organised in nine departments. As of 2016 the University of Parma has about 26,000 students. History During the ...

. It started its activities in 1990, with its involvement within the Eureka

PROMETHEUS In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning "forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, know ...

Project. Since then the research group focused on vehicular applications. VisLab, directed by Alberto Broggi, undertakes basic and applied research, including the perception of the surrounding environment in vehicular applications using cameras and fusion with other sensors.Official website for VisLab
/ref> Its researchers contribute to fields such as artificial vision,

image processing An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

neural networks A neural network is a network or circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of biological ...

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...

, and

sensor fusion Sensor fusion is the process of combining sensor data or data derived from disparate sources such that the resulting information has less uncertainty than would be possible when these sources were used individually. For instance, one could potentia ...

. In 2009, eleven VisLab researchers started a spinoff company, named VisLab srl, to commercialize the results of their main researches. The

owned a share of 5%. In 2015, VisLab was acquired by Silicon Valley company Ambarella Inc., and about 30 researchers asked and then were hired by VisLab to staff their new Parma location.

History

In the early years, the research group formed by Broggi,

Massimo Bertozzi Massimo, also Massimino, and Massimine () is a masculine Italian given name. Notable people with the name include: Given name: *Massimo Agostinelli (Max Agos) (born 1987), Swiss based Italian American artist, entrepreneur and activist *Massimo Ago ...

and

Alessandra Fascioli Alessandra is a female given name of Italian origin, meaning ''defender of men''. It is the Italian form of the female given name Alexandra and the female form of the male given name Alessandro. Alessandra may refer to: * Alessandra Ambrosio ( ...

designed, realized, and tested an

autonomous car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...

known as ARGO. ARGO was a passenger car able to perceive the environment through the use of microcameras, analyze the surroundings, plan a trajectory, and drive itself on normal roads. It was tested in 1998 with a 2000+ km tour in Italy, dubbed MilleMiglia in Automatico. In this test the vehicle drove for more than 94% in automatic mode. It was the first test in the world to use off-the-shelf and low cost technology (a

Pentium Pentium is a brand used for a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel. The original Pentium processor from which the brand took its name was first released on March 22, 1993. After that, the Pentium II and P ...

200 MHz PC and two low-cost video-phone cameras) in normal conditions of traffic, environment, and weather. In 2005 a vehicle called

TerraMax TerraMax is the trademark for autonomous/unmanned ground vehicle technology developed by Oshkosh Defense. Primary military uses for the technology are seen as reconnaissance missions and freight transport in high-risk areas so freeing soldiers fr ...

was able to successfully conclude the

DARPA Grand Challenge The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prize competition for American autonomous vehicles, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the most prominent research organization of the United States Department of Defense. Congress has authorized ...

; VisLab's vision system was its primary means of perception. In 2007 a new version of

qualified for the

DARPA Urban Challenge The third driverless car competition of the DARPA Grand Challenge was commonly known as the DARPA Urban Challenge. It took place on November 3, 2007 at the site of the now-closed George Air Force Base (currently used as Southern California Lo ...

, which was not completed due to a fault. In 2010 VisLab launched

VIAC VIAC, the VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge, is the challenge conceived by VisLab as an extreme test of autonomous vehicles. It ran from July 20, 2010 to October 28, 2010, involving four driverless vehicles driving with virtually ...

, the VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge, a 13,000 km test run for autonomous vehicles, from Italy to China. This was the first autonomous driving test on an intercontinental route; it lasted three months. On 12 July 2013 VisLab tested the BRAiVE vehicle in downtown Parma. BRAiVE successfully negotiating two-way narrow rural roads, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, speed bumps, pedestrian areas, and tight roundabouts. VisLab engineers activated the vehicle in Parma University Campus and stopped it in Piazza della Pilotta (downtown

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second mos ...

): a 20 minute run in a real environment, together with real traffic at 11am on a working day, that required absolutely no human intervention. On 31 March 2014 VisLab unveiled the new autonomous car DEEVA, which features more than 20 cameras, 4 lasers, GPS, KTM and IMU, and all sensors are hidden.

Location

VisLab is located in the

main campus, south of

, Italy.

References

External links

VisLab homepage

BRAiVE homepage

ARGO Project historical homepage
{{authority control Parma Italian companies established in 1990 University of Parma Automotive technologies Artificial intelligence laboratories Research institutes in Italy Robotics organizations Laboratories in Italy