Israeli startup TriEye, the developer of Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) sensing technology which enhances visibility in adverse weather and night time conditions, has officially revealed Sparrow, the first CMOS-based SWIR camera.

InGaAs-based SWIR cameras have been around for decades, serving the science, aerospace, and defense industries, but have not been used for mass-market applications due to their high costs and large form factor. Based on a decade of nanophotonics research, TriEye enables the fabrication of a CMOS-based HD SWIR sensor at scale, which is small size and 1000x lower cost than current technology.

Among the companies that are collaborating with TriEye and are evaluating the Sparrow is DENSO, in addition to Porsche (earlier post).

Sparrow delivers mission-critical image data under a wide range of scenarios, made possible by leveraging the unique physical properties of the SWIR spectrum. The sensor is particularly effective in low-visibility conditions such as identifying black ice, dark-clothed pedestrians, and cyclists—all under low-light or other common low visibility conditions, detection scenarios that are paramount for the automotive industry.

TriEye aims to solve the low-visibility challenge on the roads by making SWIR cameras affordable and accessible for the global mass market. The release of Sparrow, the world’s-first CMOS-based SWIR camera, marks a major milestone towards that goal. The company is expected to launch the first samples of Raven, the world’s first CMOS-based SWIR HD camera, later this year.

TriEye’s SWIR camera can be integrated as a standard visible camera and can reuse existing visible image AI algorithms, which saves the effort of recollecting and annotating millions of miles. The camera will allow Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Vehicles (AV) to achieve unprecedented vision capabilities to save lives on the roads.

In addition to the evaluation by TriEye’s automotive customers, the company has already delivered samples of the Sparrow to its non-automotive customers, allowing them to take advantage of TriEye’s SWIR capabilities to see beyond the visible.