Researchers at the University of South Australia (UniSA), in partnership with DragonFly, are working to deploy a drone to monitor and to detect remotely people with infectious respiratory conditions. The drone will be fitted with a specialized sensor and computer vision system that can monitor temperature, heart and respiratory rates,... Read more →

Munich-based LiDAR start-up Blickfeld has completed its Series A financing round. The new financing was led by the venture capital unit of Continental together with Wachstumsfonds Bayern, which is managed by Bayern Kapital, with participation of the existing investors Fluxunit – OSRAM Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds, TEV (Tengelmann Ventures) and Unternehmertum... Read more →

Researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have developed an ultra-fast image sensor with a built-in neural network; the sensor can be trained to recognize certain objects. They describe their work on ultrafast machine vision in a paper in Nature. Machine vision technology has taken huge leaps in recent years, and is... Read more →

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has developed a compact light-detection and ranging (LiDAR) solution incorporating a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) that achieves an extra-wide horizontal scanning angle to accurately detect the shapes and distances of objects ahead in autonomous driving systems. The new LiDAR solution irradiates objects by laser and uses a dual-axis... Read more →

With a $2.3-million award from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), an interdisciplinary team of Virginia Tech researchers led by Masoud Agah, the Virginia Microelectronics Consortium Professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is developing an intelligent wearable analyzer for vapor exposure, called iWAVE,... Read more →

Innoviz Technologies, a leading provider of high-performance, solid-state lidar sensors and perception software, announced cooperation with Shaanxi Heavy Duty Automobile Co. in Xi’an, China to deploy autonomous trucks for an upcoming project in one of the biggest ports in China. Shaanxi Heavy Duty Automobile Co. Ltd., better known as Shacman... Read more →

The European PRoPART (Precise and Robust Positioning for Automated Road Transports) project, funded by the European Global Navigation Satellite System Agency (GSA), recently successfully demonstrated its highly accurate positioning system in a recreated motorway situation at the AstaZero test area in Sweden, with a connected autonomous truck and two unconnected... Read more →

Hitachi Automotive Systems Americas, Inc. and TomTom (TOM2), the location technology specialist, are collaborating on a proof-of-concept for the development of a new real-time hazard service for navigation and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Through the collaboration, the companies will combine technological strengths to deliver real-time updates on the location... Read more →

Oxbotica, a developer of autonomous vehicle software, and Navtech, a global radar solution company, are developing a radar-based navigation and perception system to be launched this year. The product represents the latest advancement in radar-based technology and the partnership marks an important milestone in Oxbotica’s plans to take its software... Read more →

At CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Hyundai; Hexagon’s Positioning Intelligence Division; Valeo; and a major mobile network operator are presenting a new technology capable of pinpointing a vehicle’s exact location while on the road. Using proprietary centimeter-level precision called High-Precision Positioning (HPP), the system can further enhance a vehicle’s advanced... Read more →

Velodyne Lidar, Inc. introduced Velabit, Velodyne’s smallest sensor, at CES 2020. The Velabit leverages Velodyne’s lidar technology and manufacturing partnerships for cost optimization and high-volume production. The Velabit is engineered to be an optimal automotive-grade lidar solution for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles. It enables robust perception... Read more →

Bosch is adding a new long-range lidar to its sensor portfolio for automated driving. The new Bosch sensor will cover both long and close ranges on highways and in the city. By exploiting economies of scale, Bosch wants to reduce the price for the sophisticated technology and render it suitable... Read more →

Oculii, a company developing high resolution imaging radars to enable the next generation of autonomous systems, and Infineon are collaborating on radar software solutions that scale performance for cost-effective single chip solutions tailored for Level 1 ADAS, all the way to multi-chip high performance solutions tailored for Level 4 Autonomous... Read more →

Continental will premier its new Contact Sensor System (CoSSy) at CES 2020 next month in Las Vegas, Nevada. CoSSy closes a gap in the industry’s automotive sensor portfolio by enabling the detection of low-speed contact between a vehicle and a person or object. At CES 2020, Continental will demonstrate how... Read more →

Since June 2019, Mercedes-Benz Trucks has been supplying the new heavy-duty Actros truck with MirrorCam—side-mounted digital rear-view mirrors—as a standard feature. The digital rear-view mirror not only looks futuristic but can also do much more than conventional main and wide-angle mirrors. Its performance far exceeds the legal requirements. The MirrorCam... Read more →

Aeva, a company building next-generation sensing for autonomous vehicles (earlier post), announced the development of Aeries, Aeva’s next-generation Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) lidar system that integrates all the key elements of a lidar sensor into a miniaturized photonics chip. Essentially, unlike conventional time-of-flight (ToF) lidar systems that send out... Read more →

Velodyne Lidar, Inc. introduced Alpha Prime, the next-generation lidar sensor utilizing Velodyne’s patented surround view technology to deliver the combined highest performance specifications for the autonomous mobility industry in one sensor. Offering a new level of power efficiency, the Alpha Prime is available now for orders and delivery. The Alpha... Read more →

Hyundai Mobis has developed a new rear-autonomous emergency braking (R-AEB) technology that uses ultra short-range radar (USRR) for the first time. The new technology is expected to contribute greatly to prevent unexpected backover crashes since it responds faster and has a wider detection range than conventional ultrasound sensors used in... Read more →

Porsche is intensifying its collaboration with Israeli technology company Tactile Mobility with a minority investment. The Haifa-based company is one of the leaders in the field of “tactile data” and is based in Haifa. In addition to Porsche, Union Tech Ventures and existing investors are participating in the current investment... Read more →

To improve the safety of autonomous systems, MIT engineers have developed a system that can sense tiny changes in shadows on the ground to determine if there’s a moving object coming around the corner. Autonomous cars could one day use the system to quickly avoid a potential collision with another... Read more →

Hyundai CRADLE, Hyundai Motor Company’s corporate venturing and open innovation business, is investing in Netradyne, a US-based intelligent technology company specializing in fleet safety management software. The partnership supports further development of Level 3+ Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (L3+ ADAS) and Autonomous Driving (AD) features that may launch over the... Read more →

RoboSense (Suteng Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.) announced a partnership with China-based FAW and showcased the first batch of its solid-state Smart LiDAR Sensor RS-LiDAR-M1. FAW will include the RS-LiDAR-M1 as a core component in its proprietary next-generation autonomous driving system development, therefore accelerating the serial production of the first automotive-grade... Read more →

Porsche has acquired a minority stake in the Israeli start-up, TriEye. The newly established company has developed a sensor technology for short-wave infrared (SWIR). It enhances safety in vehicles fitted with assistance systems or autonomous driving functions by improving the ability to see in weather conditions where visibility is poor,... Read more →

Continental technologies such as ABS, radar and redundant brake system are being used in series production for robo-taxis for first time. This year, Continental’s technology for driverless vehicles will be in production for the first time in French company EasyMile’s EZ10 autonomous shuttle. Continental has held a stake in this... Read more →

Recogni Inc., the designers of a vision-oriented artificial intelligence platform for autonomous vehicles, announced $25 million in Series A financing led by GreatPoint Ventures with participation from Toyota AI Ventures, BMW i Ventures, Faurecia, Fluxunit (VC arm of lighting and photonics company OSRAM), and DNS Capital. As the automotive industry... Read more →

Velodyne Lidar, Inc. has acquired mapping and localization software as well as intellectual property assets from Mapper.ai. Mapper technology will enable Velodyne to accelerate development of Vella, software that establishes its directional view Velarray lidar sensor. The Velarray is the first solid-state Velodyne lidar sensor that is embeddable and fits... Read more →

Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, will collaborate with Mobileye, an Intel Company and a leading provider of advanced driver-assistance systems software, to bring the advanced data collection capabilities of Mobileye into Esri’s platform as native services. This collaboration will provide Esri customers with the ability to visualize and... Read more →

Innovusion Inc., a designer and developer of hybrid Solid State LiDAR systems for vehicle safety applications, announced the availability of its Cheetah system. Based on a rotating polygon optical architecture, Innovusion has melded together proprietary detector electronics, advanced optics and sophisticated software algorithms to offer a long-distance, high-resolution LiDAR vehicle... Read more →

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a small, optical nano-sensor for pollution detection which can be mounted onto an ordinary streetlight. The technology is already in use in western Sweden, and researchers and other interested parties hope that the sensor could soon be used in many broad... Read more →

ZF has developed the Dual-cam two-lens camera specifically designed for the commercial truck market and to be used in concert with other ZF ADAS technologies. The camera features ZF’s longitudinal and lateral vehicle control expertise combined with Mobileye’s advanced EyeQ4 processor. Part of ZF’s S-Cam4 family of automotive-grade cameras, the... Read more →

Side impact collisions are among the most dangerous type of road traffic accidents, accounting for nearly 700 deaths per year and nearly a third of all occupant fatalities on German roads. A new pre-crash safety system prototype developed by ZF uses an external side airbag deployed milliseconds before a collision.... Read more →

Bosch is working on sensor technology for air taxis. The Boston Consulting Group predicts that people around the world will take 1 billion flights in air taxis in 2030, once sharing services have also established a presence on fixed routes above the ground; most of those air taxis will be... Read more →

A new review by an interdisciplinary research team from New York University (NYU) of studies on levels of urban exposure to airborne pollutants and their effects on human health suggests that advanced instrumentation and information technology will soon allow researchers and policymakers to gauge the health risks of air pollution... Read more →

Cornell researchers have shown that using two inexpensive cameras on either side of a vehicle’s windshield can detect objects with nearly LiDAR’s accuracy and at a fraction of the cost. The LiDAR sensors currently used to detect 3D objects in the paths of autonomous cars are bulky, ugly, expensive, energy-inefficient—and... Read more →

RoboSense has teamed up with partners Horizon Robotics, Cainiao Network, Sensible 4, and AutoX to launch the Smart Sensor System (SSS) designed for four key smart transportation vehicle applications: autonomous passenger cars; low-speed autonomous vehicles; high-speed RoboTaxis; and V2R (Vehicle to Road infrastructure). The RoboSense Smart Sensor System combines new... Read more →

ZF announced ZF coPILOT, an intelligent advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) leading to enhanced safety and driving comfort opportunities. Leveraging the power of AI and equipped with a comprehensive sensor set, vehicles can perform various automated driving functions, especially on freeways. In addition, ZF coPILOT can be operated with voice... Read more →

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, with colleagues from Delft Technical University, the Technical University of Denmark and the University of Warsaw, have developed ultra-fast hydrogen sensors that could the future performance targets for use in hydrogen-powered vehicles. In a paper in the journal Nature Materials, the team presents... Read more →

Volkswagen Group Research is testing automated vehicles in urban traffic in Hamburg. This is the first time Volkswagen has begun to test automated driving to Level 4 at real driving conditions in a major German city. A fleet of five specially equipped e-Golfs will drive on a three-kilometer section of... Read more →

Innoviz Technologies, a provider of high-performance, solid-state lidar sensors and perception software, raised $132 million in Series C funding. The round is marked by the entrance of new major investors China Merchants Capital (SINO-BLR Industrial Investment Fund, L.P.), Shenzhen Capital Group and New Alliance Capital; and Israeli institutional investors Harel... Read more →

Lumotive, a Bill Gates-funded startup developing LiDAR systems for autonomous vehicles, introduced a beam-steering technology which will significantly improve the performance, reliability and cost of LiDAR systems for the emerging self-driving car industry. Initially targeting the robo-taxi market, Lumotive’s patented system uses Liquid Crystal Metasurfaces (LCM) and silicon fabrication to... Read more →

Autonomous vehicles relying on light-based image sensors often struggle to see through conditions such as fog. MIT researchers have now developed a sub-terahertz-radiation receiving system that could help steer driverless cars when traditional methods fail. Sub-terahertz wavelengths, which are between microwave and infrared radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum, can be... Read more →

University of Michigan researchers are teaching self-driving cars to recognize and predict pedestrian movements with greater precision than current technologies. The approach relies on a novel objective function that incorporates the periodicity of human walking (gait), the mirror symmetry of the human body, and the change of ground reaction forces... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced $11 million in funding for 7 projects in the fourth and fifth cohorts of the agency’s OPEN+ program: Energy-Water Technologies and Sensors for Bioenergy and Agriculture. Energy-Water cohort teams will develop new, energy-efficient processing technologies for industrial (particularly oil... Read more →

Baidu, Inc. has introduced Apollo 3.5, the newest and most powerful release of the open, reliable and secure software platform for the development of autonomous driving systems through on-vehicle and hardware platforms. Apollo 3.5 is the first open source autonomous driving platform that can perform in complex urban and suburban... Read more →

Cepton Technologies Inc., a provider of 3D LiDAR solutions, announced two new LiDAR products: the Vista-M and Vista-X. The Vista series LiDAR solutions are built with Cepton’s patented Micro-Motion Technology (MMT) and run on the NVIDIA DRIVE in-vehicle AI computing platform—providing high resolution and long-range imaging to enable all levels... Read more →

Innoviz Technologies and HARMAN International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. focused on connected technologies for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, have formed a strategic partnership to make Innoviz’s high-performing, solid-state and mass-producible LiDAR solutions (earlier post) available to OEMs globally. HARMAN will leverage Innoviz’s LiDAR offerings to... Read more →

At CES this year, ZF is highlighting its sensor portfolio which can detect vehicle surroundings and thereby help to enhance the safety of conventional and automated vehicles. The resulting architecture—including a new, full-range radar, solid state LiDAR, innovative cameras and acoustic sensors—are combined with a powerful and scalable NVIDIA platform... Read more →

Israel-based Arbe is launching Phoenix, its automotive 4D imaging radar beta product. This new front-end system, powered by Arbe’s proprietary chipset technology, enables evaluation and development towards production and full commercialization of 4D imaging radar for all levels of vehicle autonomy. Phoenix provides an image 100 times more detailed than... Read more →

In advance of CES, Velodyne Lidar, Inc. introduced new technology that will serve as the cornerstone of future advanced driving safety systems. The Alpha Puck, Velarray & VelaDome. Velodyne unveiled the VelaDome, a compact embeddable lidar that provides an ultra-wide 180° x 180° image for near-object avoidance. The compact sensor... Read more →

The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) will introduce the TRI-P4 automated driving test vehicle on 7 January at CES 2019 in Las Vegas. The P4 is based on the new fifth-generation Lexus LS flagship sedan and will be used in TRI’s two-track Guardian and Chauffeur automated driving system development (earlier post).... Read more →