As we reported last week, Apple have got permission from the State of California to test autonomous car technology in the state. But they haven’t described their plans publicly, or even come out and admit they’re working on self-drive tech. Reuters reports, however, that they have obtained 41 pages of Apple’s application documents from California—pages that suggest some of Apple’s lines of pursuit.
As part of the application, Apple included a 10-page training plan that appeared to be related to operators taking back manual control of the car during automated driving exercises of the system, which Apple call a development platform.
The plan includes a document called “Automated System: Development Platform Specific Training Overview”, the objective of which is to “train safety drivers in various automated driving conditions.” To wit: “Development platform will be controlled electronically (e.g. joystick) and safety drivers must be ready to intervene and take control”, as it says in the document, which also highlights different scenarios to be tested, from high speed driving and tight U-turns to lane changes.
One letter sent from Apple to the California Department of Motor Vehicles noted that Apple’s development platform “will have the ability to capture and store relevant data before a collision occurs.”
The document does not include detail on how Apple’s self-driving platform actually works or other technical details. It also does not say what kind of sensors are found on Apple’s three permitted vehicles, each of which is a 2015 Lexus RX450h.
The permit does not necessarily mean Apple themselves are building a full car; they minght be working toward a self-driving platform for inbuild into other manufacturer’s cars.
Apple declined comment beyond the filing.
