IBM Watson powers 3D-printed Olli self-driving vehicle

Making the self-driving segment more competitive, IBM has showcased Olli, a 3D-printed self-driving bus that is ready to hit roads in the US. This electric-powered bus is based on IBM’s AI platform Watson and designed by Local Motors. The vehicle will hit roads in Washington, DC, followed by Miami and Las Vegas later this year. While Local Motors and IBM, have earlier worked on a Rally Fighter concept car, but Olli could be its first commercial vehicle. Olli will be using a special version of Watson, which focuses on improving passenger experience. It can carry up to 12 people, and comes equipped with technologies including IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) for Automotive, to improve the passenger experience and allow natural interaction with the vehicle, the company claims. Passengers can interact with Olli while travelling and discuss topics about how the vehicle works, where they are going, and why Olli is making specific driving decisions. Watson empowers Olli to understand and respond to passengers’ questions. These interactions, acording to the company, are aimed at offering pleasant, intuitive and interactive experiences for riders. And, the 3D printing helps bring down the cost. The platform leverages four Watson developer APIs such as Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, Entity Extraction and Text to Speech. This will help with interactions between the vehicle and passengers. “Cognitive computing provides incredible opportunities to create unparalleled, customized experiences for customers, taking advantage of the massive amounts of streaming data from all devices connected to the Internet of Things, including an automobile’s myriad sensors and systems,” said Harriet Green, General Manager, IBM Watson Internet of Things, Commerce & Education. Local Motors CEO and co-founder John B. Rogers, Jr. said, ““Olli with Watson acts as our entry into the world of self-driving vehicles, something we’ve been quietly working on with our co-creative community for the past year. We are now ready to accelerate the adoption of this technology and apply it to nearly every vehicle in our current portfolio and those in the very near future. I’m thrilled to see what our open community will do with the latest in advanced vehicle technology.”