Last month, TIER IV hosted a live demonstration of the DTV Kit at Tokyo Ryutsu Center, giving companies, researchers and partners a first-hand look at a practical platform for autonomous driving system development. The event included presentations from TIER IV and Whale Dynamic, developer of the Drivable Test Vehicle base platform. The kit comprises the DTV base platform integrated with TIER IV software and hardware. It comes preinstalled with Autoware – open-source software for autonomous driving – providing a cost-effective starting point for research, prototyping and evaluation.
Visitors watch a demonstration of the DTV Kit at Tokyo Ryutsu Center on Nov. 21.
DTV Kit was created to reduce the barriers organizations often face when starting autonomous driving development. Even experienced teams can spend months sourcing a vehicle, modifying it for drive-by-wire control, selecting compatible sensors and computing units, installing equipment, calibrating systems and configuring software. These steps typically require multiple specialists, external vendors and significant time and budget.
The kit addresses this challenge by offering a fully assembled, sensor-equipped vehicle, with hardware and software prepared in advance. Once delivered, development teams can immediately begin running Autoware and evaluating autonomous driving functions rather than spending months building an environment from scratch.
Download the DTV Kit spec sheet.
DTV Kit also supports flexible expansion. Sensor mounting points, onboard compute and integration with TIER IV’s Edge.Auto hardware and Web.Auto cloud services allow customers to reuse or extend assets for future projects, improving long-term development efficiency. This means research, proof-of-concept evaluations, or prototyping can begin within 12 to 16 weeks from order – far shorter than the typical six months to one year required for custom vehicle preparation.
Amid growing demand for practical, cost-efficient autonomous driving development platforms, TIER IV is collaborating with industry partners to broaden access to Autoware. If you’re planning to develop autonomous driving systems or evaluating platforms for research, testing, or education, contact a member of our team.
TIER IV is always on the lookout for passionate individuals to join our journey. If you share our vision of making autonomous driving accessible to all, get in touch.
Visit our careers page to view all job openings.
If you’re uncertain about which roles align best with your experience, or if the current job openings don’t quite match your preferences, register your interest here. We’ll get in touch if a role that matches your experience becomes available, and schedule an informal interview.
Inquiries
- Media: pr@tier4.jp
- Business: sales@tier4.jp
Social Media
X (Japan/Global) | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
More