Tag: general motors

General Motors Files Patent for Blockchain-Based Autonomous Vehicle Navigation Map

Major car manufacturer American multinational corporation General Motors filed a patent on October 1, 2018, which uses the application of blockchain technology and integrates vehicle sensors to build a much-improved navigation map for autonomous vehicles.  

The patent was filed on October 1, 2018. However, it was only recently published on the official site of the US Patent & Trademark Office. According to the patent, the existing maps are difficult to keep dynamic without incurring large costs.  

“A system for updating a distributed navigation map for a motor vehicle includes one or more sensors that evaluate and characterize a surrounding around the motor vehicle and a discrepancy detector that identifies differences in the surroundings compared to a known navigation map based on information received from the one or more sensors. The differences are transmitted to a blockchain map network,” the patent read. 

The company’s solution to improve the current navigation map and make the blockchain-based navigation map work is to share a load of data collection to many vehicles when they simply drive around in the city. The data collected in real-time will then be working with discrepancy detectors that check the incoming data with existing maps.  

Any difference detected will then be transmitted to the blockchain network and will be cross-checked if a similar pattern has been observed by other moving vehicles. According to the patent, the network will be maintained by the vehicles and mining nodes in the data centers. 

This blockchain-based navigation system was earlier designed for the General Motor’s ‘Super Cruise’ feature. The ‘Super Cruise’ feature exhibits a semi-automated driving experience for some luxury models of the company. The sharing of load for data collection to generate a navigation map will speed up the company’s effort to cover most of the roads on the US Soil. 

The process eventually makes all the vehicles moving around to contribute to building one single map which is also being claimed to be one of the benefits of using blockchain technology in this system. 

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Auto Giants Consortium MOBI Reveals First Blockchain-based EVGI Standard

The Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI)—a consortium backed by Honda, General Motors Company and IBM amongst others—has launched a blockchain-based standard for Electric Vehicle Grid Integration (EVGI).

The Need For a Standard In The Electric Vehicle Industry

With the rapid transformation of mother earth owing to climate change implications, several companies following government regulations have resorted to the development of unique frameworks to alter their processes to adhere to sustainability guidelines. This move prompted players in the automotive industry to develop electric-based vehicles to solve the problem of carbon emissions.

With electric vehicles becoming commonplace in the world today, a new challenge revolving around charging stations to help balance the costs of EV batteries. Herein is where the MOBI blockchain initiative comes to play. The blockchain-initiative will serve as the world’s first global standard incorporating blockchain technology into a decentralized vehicle charging system.

The technical design released by the EVGI working group provides guidelines bothering on three core use cases including Vehicle to Grid Integration (V2G), Tokenized Carbon Credits (TCC), and Peer to Peer (P2P) applications and industry actors though not mandated to follow any specific template in building these decentralized applications to help enhance energy usage and efficiency, they will be obligated to draw from the laid down fundamentals of the three use cases.

“Implementing the EVGI Standard will provide a variety of benefits for players on all sides of the electric vehicle and charging ecosystem,” said Tram Vo, MOBI’s COO and Founder. “Electric vehicles, chargers, and electricity producers can have a secure identity, communicate with a standard messaging format, and automatically record transactions such as charging, generation, and exchange on a distributed ledger.”

Auto Manufacturers and Blockchain Solutions

The auto industry is one of the biggest promoters of blockchain technology particularly for enhancing supply chain operations.

Besides BMW, other car brands have leveraged the power of blockchain technology. For instance, Volvo Cars invested in London-based blockchain firm Circulor to develop a blockchain solution to help track and reduce the company’s car Carbon Dioxide footprint.

General Motors Company has also integrated blockchain technology for autonomous vehicle navigation maps.

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