PerceptIn Partners with Fukuoka City Government to Launch the DragonFly Pod Autonomous Vehicle in Japan's First Key Smart City Area

FREMONT, Calif., Dec. 18, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- PerceptIn, a world-class full-stack visual intelligence company focused on robotics, today announced a collaboration with the city government of Fukuoka to deploy its autonomous vehicle, the DragonFly Pod, at the Hakozaki area of Fukuoka.

With the support of The Japan Research Institute, Limited, the number one business incubation and acceleration program in Japan that supports startups for social impact, PerceptIn's goal is to launch a completely new and affordable micro-mobility service that will reduce the burden on local governments for transportation costs. As part of its partnership with Fukuoka city government and MIRAI Future Smart City Challenge, PerceptIn will carry out field tests and demonstrations in the Hakozaki area in Kyushu.

PerceptIn's electric low-speed small vehicle (LSE) DragonFly Pod is available as an autonomous mobility service that students, faculty, staff and elderly can hail for free via a mobile application. The DragonFly vehicle aims to roll-out within Hakozaki area in September 2019, when local citizens will be invited to experience the autonomous driving technology.

"We're extremely grateful to be a part of MIRAI Smart City Challenge and collaborate with the Fukuoka City Government and the Fukuoka Directive Council to bring the benefits of the DragonFly Pod to the Japanese people," said Shaoshan Liu, Founder and CEO of PerceptIn. "From serving the country's rapidly aging population, providing a clean energy transportation option for students to acting as a last-mile service in tourist destination, the DragonFly Pod can solve numerous challenges with transportation costs and efficiencies. As a small low-speed vehicle, the DragonFly Pod is environmentally friendly and can easily coexist with pedestrians and bicycles, making it ideal for micro-mobility."

"We are delighted to partner with PerceptIn to roll-out the electric low speed vehicle road test at Fukuoka City in 2019. We think this will benefit the residents living in the city. Also, from my perspective, there is a need to bring in this technology to better serve our citizens," said Shuhei Ishimaru, Director General of Fukuoka D.C.

While general autonomous driving solutions such as LiDAR can be a challenge for small low-speed vehicles in terms of their price and power consumption, the DragonFly Pod is built with computer vision technology and a sensor fusion approach that enables PerceptIn to build the vehicle at an affordable price.

PerceptIn's entrance into the Japanese market comes shortly after their launch of the DragonFly Intelligent Advertising Vehicle, which will be made available for purchase in the U.S to select customers in the first quarter of 2019 for $40,000. The company is now selecting customers for their self-driving vending machine pilot program in the U.S.

About PerceptIn
PerceptIn is a world-class full-stack visual intelligence company building machines that see, interpret, learn and take action. The company's core technology, focused on visual intelligence, is finding its way onto myriad new devices in a broad range of areas, from IoT-grade robots to autonomous driving. PerceptIn's DragonFly is the world's first safe, reliable and most affordable people's autonomous vehicle. With headquarter in California and office in Shenzhen, China, PerceptIn serves more than 100 customers globally and works on providing hardware and software solutions for the robotization of the next generation of products.

Media contact:
Crystal Leung, Public Relations Manager of PerceptIn
[email protected]

SOURCE PerceptIn