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Warm amber light suffuses this documentary photograph capturing the intersection of advanced autonomous technology and everyday urban life, with YooJung Ahn's The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver…

The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver Powering Safe and Easy Transport by YooJung Ahn is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 Platinum A' Design Award in Robotics, Automaton and Automation Design Competition Category.


PlatinumRobotics· 2021

The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver Powering Safe and Easy Transport

by YooJung Ahn

Client: Waymo

Platinum A' Design Award Winner in Robotics Category

1,057,839

Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #111696

Colors

The Design

About The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver Powering Safe and Easy Transport

The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver is an autonomous driving system for vehicles. The system can be applied to multiple vehicle platforms, from cars to trucks, and supports ride-hailing, trucking, local delivery and personal car ownership. Three sensing technologies are combined in the hardware suite: lidar, cameras and radar. Moving LEDs on the 360 degree lidar carry a personal identification symbol, so riders can recognize their vehicle. Sensors are placed to look seamless on the vehicle. The design aims to make transport safer and easier for people and goods.

The Recognition

About the Platinum A' Design Award

The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver Powering Safe and Easy Transport is a Platinum A' Design Award winner, an extremely prestigious recognition granted to truly exceptional, elegant, and magnificent designs. Platinum winners are marvels of creation, testaments to the limits of intellectual creativity, and demonstrate the unmatched professionalism and genius of their designers. These designs are expected to be the most renowned works that define the aesthetics of an era, contribute to the well-being of society, and push the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver Powering Safe and Easy Transport exhibits a transcendent level of excellence and unequivocally makes the world a better place with its advantageous and worthwhile characteristics. The Fifth-Generation Waymo Driver Powering Safe and Easy Transport is a Platinum A' Design Award-winning work that triggers desires, inspires, excites, delights, and sparks great joy.

Where to Get It

Autonomous Driving Technology Solutions

We revolutionize transportation safety through our award-winning self-driving technology. Our advanced sensor suite combines lidar, cameras, and radar to navigate roads with unprecedented precision, potentially saving millions of lives by eliminating human error from driving.

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Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties
Waymo’s technology, called the Waymo Driver, has the potential to save millions of lives and improve mobility for people and things. The fifth-generation Waymo Driver can be applied to multiple vehicle platforms, from cars to trucks, and power use cases across ride-hailing, trucking, local delivery, and personal car ownership. The latest system is more powerful than ever before and designed for scale, enabling safer and easier transportation for both people and goods.
Dimensions & Packaging
Waymo Driver and vehicle max dimensions for the I-PACE platform*:
Width: 2130mm
Length: 4863mm
Height: 2041mm

*Please note these are dimensions for the I-PACE platform as an example. Measurements will vary depending on which vehicle platform the Waymo Driver is being applied to.
Tags
Mobility, self-driving, safety, AI, cars, trucks, vehicles, autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing, delivery
Production Technology
Materials: A diverse selection of materials like plastic, composites, glass, and metal
Design Challenge
The creative challenge is ensuring the design of the high-tech Waymo Driver remains human-centered. Our designers are tasked with packaging advanced technologies into a design that optimizes performance but also feels approachable to users. For example, we carefully curate the placement of our sensors and other technology on our cars and trucks to maximize safety and performance, while still making them look seamless on the vehicle.
Inspiration
Traffic crashes cause 1.35 million deaths each year, and 94% of traffic crashes in the U.S. are caused by human error. While humans are susceptible to dangerous variables, the Waymo Driver doesn't get tired or angry, distracted, or drunk. The Waymo Driver’s latest hardware suite includes new, leading technologies that can be applied to everything from passenger vehicles to long-haul trucks, taking tangible steps to make our roads dramatically safer.
Project Duration
Mountain View, CA
Operation Flow
The Waymo Driver’s latest hardware suite includes three sensing technologies—lidar, cameras, and radar. Our team designs these technologies to make them feel approachable to users, while still prioritizing safety and performance. For example, we added moving LEDs to our 360 lidar, so that it can include both Waymo branding and a personal identification symbol that acts as a mechanism for customers to identify which vehicle is theirs.
Patents
US Patent Appl. Nos. 29/689,690; 29/722,227; 29/724,655; 29/725,082; 29/724,585; and 29/724,589. Chinese Patent App. No. CN201930599257.7. European Community Design App. No. ECD007141866.
Team Members
YooJung Ahn
Josh Newby
Jared Gross
Jerry Chen
Alexandre Girard
Zhaokun Wang
Yi-Hui Bruce-Wen
Tom Southworth
Albert Shane

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Good Design Deserves Great Recognition

The A' Design Award is an international, juried accolade for good design. Take part in the A' Design Award to get an opportunity to earn meritocratic recognition, gain fame, prestige and publicity for your work. Nominate your work for the A' Design Award and compete for the coveted A' Design Prize.

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