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TEL AVIV, Israel – Ottopia announced today a collaboration with DENSO, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, as well as the launch of its advanced teleoperation platform to provide direct and indirect remote control of autonomous vehicles. The company’s platform creates an integration of human operators with artificial intelligence software with the goal of creating a new safety standard for teleoperation, it said.

Amit Rosenzweig, Ottopia CEO.

“Our collaboration with DENSO has been phenomenal from day one,” said Amit Rosenzweig, founder and CEO of Ottopia. “DENSO is interested in a teleoperation solution focused on safety and scalability. These are exactly the values Ottopia is committed to while building the world’s first automotive-grade teleoperation platform.”

The company, which raised $3 million in seed funding in December 2018, said teleoperation is needed to assist self-driving vehicles through complex situations, with most experts agreeing that there will always be cases where human intervention is needed. Ottopia said its platform provides this human assistance. It uses proprietary network bonding and ultra-low latency video compression to “reliably deliver real-time operation of vehicles over existing public cellular networks.”

By employing advanced AI and indirect methods of control, operators can also support multiple autonomous vehicles, the company said. The platform introduces an active safety layer of vehicle-side software that “ensures safe operation, even in harsh conditions such as lost cellular connection or extreme weather.”

In addition, the platform can enable remote control in other vehicles, including in the freight, shipping, and construction markets. “Anyone who is interested in teleoperation – from robotaxi companies to fleet management and logistics companies – can now deploy our platform,” said Rosenzweig.

The company plans to demonstrate its platform during EcoMotion Week, to be held June 10-13, 2019, in Tel Aviv.