Continental has taken a minority stake in lidar pioneer AEye. The company, headquartered in Dublin, California, has developed a precision, high-performance, long-range lidar technology. Continental plans to industrialize this for passenger cars and trucks. The volume production launch is scheduled for late 2024. The two companies have agreed not to disclose the proposed investment amount.

Along with cameras and radars, lidar sensors count among the key technologies for automated driving. Continental has more than 20 years of experience in lidar sensors alone. In 2019, the technology company generated some €2 billion from driver assistance systems, making it one of the leading suppliers in this growth market.

The lidar from AEye is characterized by high performance in long-range detection. Vehicles are detected at a distance of more than 300 meters and pedestrians at more than 200 meters. Furthermore, even small, low-reflecting objects such as bricks are reliably detected at a distance of up to 160 meters.

With its stake in AEye, Continental is thus complementing its existing close-range lidar technology. In late 2020, Continental will start volume production of the sensor for a well-known vehicle manufacturer’s premium vehicles worldwide. Here, it is an important component of the system for highly automated driving.

We’re bringing what others are still tinkering with onto the road around the globe. Continental is the first automotive supplier to industrialize high-resolution lidar sensors without moving components.

With our stake in AEye, we’ll be able to accurately and reliably cover all distances using lidar technology in the future in order to implement highly to fully automated driving in both passenger car and truck applications. In doing so, we’re consolidating our leadership position in assisted and automated driving.

—Frank Petznick, head of the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business unit at Continental

Earlier this year, AEye announced 4Sight, a new solid-state sensor family built on its unique iDAR platform. (Earlier post.) The first 4Sight sensor is the 4Sight M. The 4Sight M is designed to meet the diverse range of performance and functional requirements to power autonomous and partially automated applications. 4Sight family of sensors has been developed and tested over the last 18 months in conjunction with a wide range of customers and integrators in automotive, trucking, transit, construction, rail, intelligent traffic systems (ITS), aerospace and defense markets.

4Sight leverages the complete iDAR software platform, which incorporates an upgraded visualizer (which allows you to model various shot patterns) and a comprehensive SDK so it is fully extensible and customizable.