ASI Founders Interviewed for OEM Off-Highway Magazine

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The article “Driver Not Included” in the Nov/Dec 2013 issue of OEM Off-Highway magazine features an interview with ASI’s Mitch Torrie and Paul Lewis.

The following article includes excerpts from an interview between ASI founders Mitch Torrie and Paul Lewis and the OEM Off-Highway magazine.
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The magazine article, entitled “Driver Not Included,” was published in the November/December 2013 issue and highlights the history and benefits of vehicle automation.

“When we started ten years ago, the technology for GPS systems and IMUs was much more expensive—ten times as expensive as it is now,” says Paul Lewis, co-founder and Director of Software Development at Autonomous Solutions, Inc. (ASI). For the past thirteen years, ASI has provided vehicle robotics to customers in a range of industries including mining, military, farming, and automotive.

While vehicle automation remains an emerging technology in most of these industries, the price of technology and public acceptance continue to improve.
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“We were working with early adopters creating proof of concept machines,” continues Lewis. “Now that the market is more mature, the technology is cheaper and more accessible for higher volumes, and people are culturally willing to accept vehicles that drive themselves.”

Recent events in the industry, like Google’s purchase of Boston Dynamics, highlight the buzz about robotics as ‘the next big thing.’

Even with more companies entering the space, ASI remains well positioned as an experienced leader with key product advantages, most notably, the Mobius™ command and control software.
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“The way we designed Mobius was to allow the user to change a fair amount of how it looked, felt, and what information was being presented to them,” explains Lewis. “We’re working on some next generation simplifications to make the system even more powerful and easy to use.”

“Instead of selecting a specific application for a particular vehicle for a certain location,” added Mitch Torrie, co-founder and Director of Vehicle Automation at ASI, “the system will automatically suggest the most appropriate actions… While our early adopters were technically literate, now we’re putting our systems on vehicles in countries where it may be difficult to find an operator with a driver’s license, let alone high technical skills.
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“We’re trying to make it simpler for the user to get the intention across to the software without as much manual interaction. We’re trying to bring autonomy to the masses.”

“[Mobius] has evolved from an engineering tool,” continues Lewis, “where the user could do almost anything, into a functional system that protects the machines and operators from themselves and gets the job done faster, safer, and more efficiently.”
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Modularity is another key differentiation of ASI’s system. The NAV vehicle autonomy kit consists of a family of modules that work together to automate a vehicle’s basic functions. This construction gives ASI technicians the flexibility to convert nearly any vehicle from manual to robotic control.
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“The core of any vehicle is the same,” said Lewis, “so it’s mainly our modules that vary depending on how we need to interface with the machine… we try to combine as much usefulness as possible into our common core. This allows us to do the smallest amount of work to achieve a unique customer request.”
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What does the future of vehicle automation hold? With thirteen years of experience in the market, Mitch and Paul have some pretty interesting ideas of where things are headed. Make sure to read the full “Driver Not Included” article to find out what’s next in the vehicle automation industry.
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