Perrone Robotics in Crozet wants its robotics software platform MAX to be to self-driving cars what Windows is to PCs. And by all accounts, it’s succeeding.

A Lincoln MKZ operates autonomously via Perrone Robotics’ MAX software.
Photos courtesy of Perrone Robotics

A Lincoln MKZ operates autonomously via Perrone Robotics’ MAX software.

A Lincoln MKZ operates autonomously via Perrone Robotics’ MAX software.

Project manager Don Perrone points to hardware developed by PRI that will quickly transform any vehicle into a self-driving car.

The Perrone Robotics team.
In October 2005, Crozet-based tech entrepreneur Paul Perrone, now 48, entered his first self-driving car, Tommy, in the nation’s most prestigious competition for autonomous vehicles: the DARPA Grand Challenge, which is funded by the Defense Advance Research Project Agency. Back then, Perrone Robotics Inc. (PRI) consisted of little more than a makeshift lab in a basement, a couple of volunteers, Tommy and a mobile autonomous robotics software platform called MAX.
Though Perrone didn’t take home the $2 million prize, participating in the race paid off in two big ways. The remote, 150-mile driverless run through the Mojave Desert from Los Angeles to Las Vegas let him test MAX’s capabilities, and perhaps more importantly, Tommy’s performance against better-funded competitors in the field of 40 entrants sowed the seeds for his company’s eventual expansion.
The company’s flagship product, MAX, for which PRI was granted a pioneer’s patent—a special distinction reserved for revolutionary innovations—in 2006, “is a software platform that lets you create a robot application quickly and robustly,” explains Perrone. “The acronym stands for Mobile Autonomous X, where X is a variable that allows you to plug in whatever type of robot you want—it could be a car, or a personal robot, or an airplane, or whatever.
“Essentially, it’s software that’s used to build other software,” he explains. “It’s like a foundation and a set of tools that lets you build a house more rapidly. Only, with a software platform, you’re building other software applications.” Put another way, MAX is to vehicles and robots what Windows is to PCs, or Android is to non-iOS smartphones.
“The platform saves programmers time by keeping them from having to rebuild things they would otherwise have to create themselves over and over again when building applications,” says Perrone, adding that this capability is what ultimately allows for hardware independence. “We can integrate different sensors, controls, algorithms, computer platforms and so on.” In other words, everything you need to run a fully autonomous vehicle.
Growth
PRI has become an international leader in the growing field of autonomous cars. With players like Google, Uber, Tesla, Volvo, Ford and a dozen other automakers committing to make fully autonomous vehicles available by 2020, the market is lucrative. According to a recent Boston Consulting Group study, “12 million fully autonomous units could be sold a year globally by 2035, and the market for partially and fully autonomous vehicles is expected to leap from about $42 billion in 2025 to nearly $77 billion in 2035.”
In response to this demand, PRI recently dedicated a new facility in downtown Crozet in early July—Gov. Terry McAuliffe cut the red ribbon at the opening—and growth continues unabated. In October, the company contracted with an undisclosed major insurer to develop crash-testing and avoidance technologies, spawning a subsidiary, Perrone Automotive Robotics Test Systems,or PARTS.
In November, PRI announced a partnership with tech giant Intel, allowing the company to scale up marketing and development for the MAX platform and enabling greater access to the global tech marketplace.
Perrone’s primary focus is on the partnership with Intel and its software arm, Wind River Systems. Intel Capital has contributed $38 million in working capital to 12 tech start-ups, including PRI. In a statement, Intel Senior Vice President Wendell Brooks described the recipients of the capital as “visionary entrepreneurs developing breakthrough technologies to transform lives and industries.”
“After witnessing how rapidly and effectively we can integrate MAX for the automation of vehicles, Intel agreed to help us commercialize our software so that we can put it in the hands of others to use,” says Perrone. “It’s a big deal for us, because we’ve been able to use MAX to do amazing things and now the world will be able to do the same—we’ll see massive scale from this.”
The Intel investment has led to a major strategic shift within the company. Prior to the partnership, PRI mainly focused on building customized software for individual customers—for instance, a company may have needed a robotic arm, or an automated forklift. But the process could take as long as three years from sale to completion, says PRI’s Chief Operating Officer, Greg Scharer, 47. Now, PRI is preparing a small armada of cars intended to show major industry players and automotive producers what MAX can do on a larger scale. “We’ve gone from a company that focused on great custom-engineered robotics that serviced maybe one or two customers at a time, to creating software that, with the right partnerships, will serve a global audience,” he says.
To do this, says Scharer, “We’re looking to add between five and 15 new positions a year for at least the next five years. By 2022, we expect to have as many as 120 employees. And these will be great jobs—we’ll be hiring highly-educated, internationally-competitive candidates.”
Today and the Future
In January, PRI announced that 74-year-old Atari founder Nolan Bushnell—best known as the inventor of “PONG”—was joining its three-person managing board. And in late May, the creator of the Java programming language, James Gosling, 62, was recruited to join the company’s board of advisors. Both entities work closely together.
According to Scharer, the new additions bring valuable experience and industry know-how to the table. “Nolan’s been in the IT industry since the beginning and has a proven record of taking early-stage technology and creating a productive business around it,” he says. “And James is considered a guru in the coding community—I can’t tell you how great it is to have these guys to bounce ideas around with.” Together, Scharer says, he hopes the two will help PRI attract significant investment capital and some of the world’s best and brightest tech talent.
Scharer says the company will soon be signing a deal with a major European auto manufacturer. “I can’t talk much about it just yet, but it’s a major development and it’s going to be very big for us,” says Scharer. How big? “Look, we’re seeking nothing short of becoming the Microsoft of autonomous cars and this will be a huge step in the right direction.”
Scharer and Perrone’s confidence in the growth capacity of the autonomous industry derives from safety considerations: According to the National Highway Safety Administration there are 33,000-40,000 traffic fatalities a year in the U.S. “Once automated cars become the dominant mode of transportation, we predict that rate will be immediately reduced by almost 75 percent, and as the system becomes standardized, total fatalities will go down by another two orders of magnitude,” says Scharer, noting two other benefits: better commute times and higher fuel efficiency.
With Google currently testing fleets of autonomous cars and Budweiser having made the world’s first automated beer shipment in late November 2016, Scharer’s ambitions seem plausible. “Moving into the future you’re only going to see more and more autonomy in cars,” says Perrone. “By 2025, we think a majority of cars will probably be autonomous, and by 2030 or 2035, the preponderance of cars will be autonomous. We intend to have a major share in that action.” PerroneRobotics.com