The self-driving sensors that power Apple’s autonomous car have gotten a significant update since the last time we saw them.
Apple’s self-driving car was recently spotted by the CEO of a self-driving car start-up called Voyage. Co-founder MacCallister Higgins got up close with one of Apple’s Lexus RX450h’s that’s outfitted with a monstrous new sensor array. The short video posted to Twitter shows Apple’s project has made some serious strides in the last few months.
Check it out:
Going to need more than 140 characters to go over Apple’ss Project Titan. I call it "The Thing" pic.twitter.com/sLDJd7iYSa
— MacCallister Higgins (@macjshiggins) October 17, 2017
The car appears to be packing six Velodyne-made LIDAR sensor, some radar units and a lot of other cameras. All of it is encased in a white plastic shell in true Apple style. It’s definitely a much more serious rig than the last one we saw out of Cupertino.
Apple’s solution isn’t quite as streamlined as Google’s sensor deck for its self-driving mini-can project with Crystler.
Project Titan
Apple’s self-driving car project, internally dubbed Project Titan, has undergone some big changes since the company originally decided to pursue an automotive car project. Instead of working to build a self-driving car from the ground up, Apple allegedly changed its focus to just building the underlying self-driving technology.
Another Twitter user also spotted the car with the new sensor array. The vehicle pulled up to an Apple employee shuttle spot, stayed for a few minutes and then took off again. Apple is rumored to be working on an autonomous shuttle bus for employees, so it could be that the vehicle was laying the groundwork for that route.
MacCallister Higgins revealed that a few other details about the setup. Unlike other self-driving cars that put their high-powered CPUs in the trunk of a car, Apple decided to put its compute stack on the roof unit of the car.
