Phantom Of The Operator: Self-Driving Tech’s Slowing Timetable Creates Opening For This Monitoring And Guidance Startup

The 2020s may yet be the decade of self-driving cars, but early predictions from automakers and tech developers including Tesla, Nissan, Nvidia and Ford that autonomous vehicles would be ready as soon as this year or next don’t seem to be panning out. This week auto supply giant Magna ended a tech alliance with Lyft on self-driving robotaxis owing to a slower-than-anticipated timetable. 

But the billions of dollars that have been poured into R&D and development of advanced sensors and computing the past few years are being leveraged for near-term applications, including delivery robots and self-driving trucks, as well as autonomous warehouse, cleaning and security bots. And as those vehicles proliferate, there’s an increasing need to keep track of them, monitor their operations, provide remote guidance in some cases or even, in very limited circumstances, drive them remotely. This is where Phantom Auto comes in.

The Silicon Valley startup founded by Forbes 30 Under 30 alum Shai Magzimof, came out of stealth in 2018 with fascinating displays of how it could remotely drive cars, notably driving a Lincoln MKZ sedan around Las Vegas, controlled by a technician 500 miles away in Mountain View, California. So far it’s raised about $20 million and is preparing to raise more to add technicians and customer support staff. It’s also pivoted toward providing software that can be installed in a range of vehicles that allows remote technicians to see what the robotic vehicle sees through its onboard camera and vision system. In addition to monitoring, a remote operator can assist with guidance and path planning for the vehicle and, in limited cases, control the vehicle remotely. 

“We started off giving the end to end solution, doing everything – the (remote) control station, the vehicle hardware and the software,” Magzimof tells Forbes. “Now we’re basically a software-only solution and you can deploy that on any hardware.”

Phantom began to supply its software and monitoring services last year to Postmates to keep an eye on its Serve delivery robots rolling around Los Angeles and provides monitoring and remote operation services for Terberg, a Dutch maker of freight-yard tractors. (The company says it also other revenue-generating programs with self-driving tech companies that it can’t disclose.) Building on that the company this week rolled out its “Phantom Core Software Development Kit” that Magzimof expects will boost revenue and its customer base because it can be installed on any onboard computer system to provide much-needed monitoring and guidance help. 

As more autonomous vehicles take to public streets and sidewalks, remote monitoring, assistance or both has become a requirement in states including California, Florida and Texas, and in countries such as Sweden, the U.K. and the Netherlands. For delivery robots, every state with laws governing their use requires remote monitoring and assistance.

In December, self-driving tech startup Aurora, led by former Google Self-Driving Car Project leader Chris Urmson, said it’s creating a “teleassit” system for its test fleet. Like Phantom, technicians at remote facilities can access a vehicle’s sensors when needed and offer suggestions and guidance for unusual developments. Waymo, with the biggest robotaxi test fleet, operating in metro Phoenix, also has been using a similar approach for the past two years. 

Neither company uses remote driving as an option owing to concerns about latency in the cellular networks sending back sensor data from vehicles. Similarly, there’s a human latency element in which it can take extra seconds for the remote human operator, even with the best visual information, to fully understand what’s happening. 

Phantom does provide remote driving services, “but we’re doing it either in enclosed environments, like yard trucks, forklifts or tugs, in public on sidewalks in limited circumstances–a delivery bot moving at very low speed,” says Phantom cofounder and Chief Development Officer Elliot Katz. 

As self-driving tech improves the public must be convinced it’s safe and that there are backup systems to ensure accidents are avoided. That was made abundantly clear in 2018 when a flawed Uber self-driving test vehicle and an inattentive human safety driver fatally struck a pedestrian crossing a dark street in Tempe, Arizona. 

Phantom is positioning itself to provide that added layer of safety for a wide range of self-driving vehicles, from small drones up to Class-8 semi trucks, for years to come with its monitoring software. 

“We’re in the autonomy is not yet fully deployed business–and business is good,” Katz said, declining to provide revenue details.