Yandexs on-demand transportation service Yandex.Taxi has developed a self-driving car prototype as a first step towards a comprehensive set of driverless technologies for applications across a wide range of industries. Yandex.Taxis driverless car incorporates Yandexs homegrown technologies such as mapping, real-time navigation, computer vision and object recognition, which have been powering a range of Yandex services for years.

Yandexs on-demand transportation service Yandex.Taxi is thrilled to unveil its autonomous car project powered by machine learning. Yandex has developed a self-driving car prototype as a first step towards a comprehensive set of driverless technologies for applications across a wide range of industries.

Yandex.Taxis driverless car incorporates Yandexs homegrown technologies such as mapping, real-time navigation, computer vision and object recognition, which have been powering a range of Yandex services for years. Yandex.Taxis self-driving vehicle has the intelligent capabilities to "make decisions" in complex environments, such as busy city traffic, thanks to our machine learning and proprietary computing algorithms.
"Self-driving cars are set to revolutionalise the way we commute within a matter of a decade," says Dmitry Polishchuk, head of Yandex.Taxi's Self-Driving Project. "At this point in time, there are dozens of companies around the world building their own driverless cars, but only a few of them have components crucial for turning this project into reality. These components include a stack of reliable technologies and algorithms, engineering expertise and resources, and access to the market for self-driving vehicles. Yandex.Taxi, with the backing of Yandex, is one of the few players who can boast of possessing all of the above."
Yandex.Taxis efforts in developing the self-driving car technology aim at creating a fully-fledged autopilot functionality with no human intervention. The autopilot functionality would be considered a Level 5 on the classification system for automated vehicles. This classification system, which is universally accepted in this industry, classifies all self-driving cars by levels 0 through 5, where Level 0 means a person has full control over a vehicle, and Level 5 involves no human intervention.
Yandex.Taxi will continue experimenting and improving its self-driving technology by enhancing and implementing Yandex maps, navigation and route planning to the project. Testing on public roads will begin next year.
As Yandex.Taxi test-drives its self-driving service, Yandex welcomes opportunities to partner with automotive manufacturers and other companies interested in putting autonomous car technology on the road.