Canon has signed a memorandum of cooperation with Tier IV, an open-source autonomous driving company, and the two formally announced that they have become strategic partners, and Canon will produce specialized in-vehicle cameras for the company. Canon's move is also affected by the sluggishness of the digital camera industry, "forced" to develop new business.
Canon Zhuhai Co. Ltd. said last week that due to the sharp contraction of the global camera market and the epidemic, the company's operations are facing unprecedented difficulties, and the headquarters had to adjust the group's overall business structure. Subsequently, Canon China said it plans to close part of its production line in Zhuhai, which mainly makes digital camera products.
It is understood that Canon will work with Tier IV*** to develop automated driver assistance systems (ADAS) and other related on-board camera products, which will be loaded onto Tier IV's self-driving cars for testing.Tier IV, which is a member of the Hon Hai Group's MIH Electric Vehicle Consortium and which received a $9 million strategic investment in 2019, plans to 2022 launch its own L4-level self-driving system.
In addition, Canon will also plunge into the development of a Driver Monitoring System (DMS), which can use cameras to monitor driver behavior in real time and enable a variety of assisted driving functions such as fatigue driving alerts.