- SMK Electronics introduced its RGB-IR ultra-high resolution 5-megapixel automotive grade camera at CES 2023. Designed for in-cabin monitoring of seat occupancy, the RGB-IR gathers significantly greater detail in both normal and low light conditions; and, with its comparatively smaller footprint, replaces the dual RGB and IR cameras traditionally used... Read more →

Light detection and ranging (lidar) technology provides a three-dimensional map of all objects around the vehicle regardless of external lighting conditions, and as such can be a key element in autonomous vehicle (AV) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). (Tesla being a notable holdout so far.) This map, updated hundreds... Read more →

ZF, the world’s leading supplier of automotive cameras, has developed Smart Camera 6, its next generation of cameras for the advanced development of urban and highway automated driving and safety systems. ZF also offers multi-sensor environmental monitoring through Image Processing Module systems to offer 3D surround view, Interior Monitoring Systems... Read more →

Sony Honda Mobility Inc. (SHM)—the new joint venture between Sony and Honda targeting high-value-added electric vehicles (EVs) and mobility services (earlier post)—announced its new brand AFEELA, and unveiled a prototype vehicle at CES 2023. SHM will develop the production model based on this prototype. Pre-orders are planned to begin in... Read more →

Cepton has introduced its new lidar, the Vista-X120 Plus—the slimmest software definable, top-end automotive lidar for real-time adaptive 3D perception. Cepton says that the Vista-X120 Plus advances its vision for mass-market lidar adoption. Expanding on Cepton’s commercially scalable Vista-X90 lidar, which will be deployed in the company’s ADAS lidar series... Read more →

Aeva, a provider of next-generation sensing and perception systems, and Plus, a global provider of autonomous driving solutions, unveiled a design for the next-generation PlusDrive highly automated driving solution integrated with Aeva’s Aeries II 4D LiDAR sensor. The truck will be shown in Aeva’s booth at CES 2023. Aeva and... Read more →

In Germany, the publicly-funded 6G-ICAS4Mobility (6G Integrated Communication & Sensing for Mobility) project aims to more closely interconnect the communication and sensing systems (ICAS), which currently run separately, and to integrate them into a single 6G system. Over the next three years, the project will develop crucial foundations of the... Read more →

Magna International will acquire the Veoneer Active Safety business from SSW Partners for $1.525 billion in cash, subject to working capital and other customary purchase price adjustments. The combined business is projected to generate approximately $3 billion in sales in 2024, positioning Magna’s ADAS business as a global leader. Combining... Read more →

Honeywell is expanding its strategic alliance with Nexceris, developer of Li-ion Tamer lithium-ion gas detection solutions, to help make electric vehicles (EVs) safer. Honeywell and Nexceris will co-develop sensor-based solutions to help prevent conditions leading to thermal runaway in EV batteries. Global sales of EVs doubled in 2021 from the... Read more →

Ouster, a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar, and Velodyne, a leading global player in lidar sensors and solutions, have entered into a definitive agreement to merge in an all-stock transaction. According to the companies, the key strengths of the combined company will include: Operational synergies across engineering, manufacturing, and... Read more →

Hitachi Astemo has developed a prototype 360-degree stereo vision system for automated vehicles traveling on regular streets. Based on multi-camera 3D sensing, the all-surrounding sensing system is both high-resolution and highly accurate. Most current automated driving systems are limited to highway driving. To enable automated driving systems to be used... Read more →

Seeing Machines Limited, an advanced computer vision technology company that designs AI-powered operator monitoring systems to improve transport safety, has entered an exclusive collaboration agreement with Magna International to pursue driver and occupant monitoring system business targeting the vehicle’s interior rear-view mirror. At the same time, Magna is also investing... Read more →

Velodyne Lidar has acquired Bluecity, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence (AI) software company, in an all-stock transaction. The addition of Bluecity is expected to be immaterial to operating expenses and cash usage. Bluecity’s executive, software development and sales teams will join Velodyne. Velodyne and Bluecity have been partnering for many years... Read more →

DENSO Corporation has expanded the detection angle of its vision sensor, increasing the sensor’s ability to recognize pedestrians and bicycles around a vehicle to improve road safety. The vision sensor is used on some grades of the SUBARU Legacy Outback for the North American market, and the all-new SUBARU Crosstrek.... Read more →

Large pieces of plastic can break down into nanosized particles that often find their way into the soil and water. Perhaps less well known is that they can also float in the air. It’s unclear how nanoplastics impact human health, but animal studies suggest they’re potentially harmful. As a step... Read more →

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) robotics researchers working with Ford Motor Company have found a way to tell an autonomous vehicle which cameras to use when navigating. Professor Michael Milford, Joint Director of the QUT Center for Robotics and Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and senior author, said the research... Read more →

Developers of motor control systems are replacing Hall Effect position sensors and older magnetic resolver solutions with inductive alternatives that eliminate expensive magnets and other heavy transformer-based structures so they can be integrated onto simple, compact printed circuit boards (PCBs). Extending the world’s broadest line of inductive position sensors into... Read more →

LiDAR technology (Light Detection and Ranging) offers high potential for machine perception in automated driving and currently available comfort- and safety features due to its precise distance sensing and three-dimensional point cloud image generation. A growing number of new and established sensor manufacturers have thus been working on LiDAR sensors... Read more →

Toyota Connected North America (TCNA), an independent software and innovation center of excellence, has introduced its Cabin Awareness concept technology that uses millimeter-wave, high-resolution 4D imaging radar to help detect occupants (including certain pets) in cars and has the potential to detect them if ever they’re left behind. The Cabin... Read more →

Continental is launching two new sensors for electrified vehicles: the Current Sensor Module (CSM) and the Battery Impact Detection (BID) system. Both new solutions focus on protecting the battery and/or on battery parameter retention. The high-voltage Current Sensor Module (CSM), which will move into production this year, measures the current... Read more →

Untether AI, a developer of at-memory computation for artificial intelligence (AI) inference acceleration, announced a collaboration with General Motors, supported by the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Vehicle Innovation Network (OVIN), to accelerate the development of next-generation artificial intelligence perception systems for autonomous vehicles. More than 90% of the... Read more →

ZF is set to launch a Collision Mitigation System (CMS) for city buses. Offering active braking to help avoid frontal collisions with other road users, including vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians, the system also helps counter the adverse impact of braking momentum on passengers. Helping reduce the risk of accidents and... Read more →

Nissan announced a new driver-assistance technology, which is currently in-development, that utilizes highly accurate, real-time information about the vehicle’s surrounding environment to enhance collision avoidance significantly. At a Nissan facility in Yokohama, a test vehicle demonstrated how this technology can automatically perform collision-avoidance maneuvers. ProPILOT Concept Zero test vehicle Nissan’s... Read more →

Magna is expanding its ADAS and electrification footprint with the opening of a new plant in Kechnec, Slovakia. The brownfield facility will support two European automakers and new global entrant. Covering an area of approximately 22,000 square meters, the facility is expected to begin operations in the fourth quarter of... Read more →

DeepRoute.ai, an international autonomous driving technology company, announced a leading-edge Robotaxi fleet comprising 30 SAIC Motor MARVEL R SUVs equipped with DeepRoute’s proprietary L4 Driver 2.0 solution. This fleet distinguishes itself from other Robotaxis in its sleek rooftop design, replacing the traditional bulky sensor suite. With a 360-degree view and... Read more →

>Metis Engineering revealed the beta version of its Production Battery Safety Sensor, designed to monitor the health of a lithium-ion battery pack and detect cell venting, an early sign of catastrophic battery failure. Metis Engineering Managing Director Joe Holdsworth said that the team plans to make one or two minor... Read more →

Aurora Innovation has launched Aurora Driver Beta 2.0, the second release of its integrated hardware and autonomy system. This release powers Aurora’s next-generation truck fleet and its recently unveiled Toyota Sienna test fleet. It also debuts new capabilities and critical improvements to prepare the Aurora Driver for commercial launch, including:... Read more →

Scantinel Photonics, a FMCW LiDAR startup, has demonstrated the first fully solid-state parallelized FMCW 5D+ LiDAR system based on Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC). First fully solid-state parallelized FMCW 5D+ PIC Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology is becoming widely used in various applications such as navigation, robotics, remote sensing, advanced... Read more →

Aeva, a developer of next-generation sensing and perception systems, announced that its Aeries 4D LiDAR sensors are now supported on the NVIDIA DRIVE autonomous vehicle platform. Aeva’s Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) 4D LiDAR sensors detect 3D position and instant velocity for each point at distances up to 500 meters,... Read more →

Uhnder, a developer of digital imaging radar technology for automotive and next-generation mobility applications, will soon become the first company to mass-produce a fully automotive qualified, 4D digital imaging radar-on-chip. The S80 is a fully integrated 77 GHz, 4D Imaging Radar-on-Chip (RoC) with Digital Code Modulation (DCM) certified for use... Read more →

Neural Propulsion Systems (NPS), a developer of autonomous sensing platforms, issued a white paper that concludes that new innovations enable vehicles with or without human supervision to see soon enough, clear enough and far enough to eliminate roadway deaths. Achieving zero roadway deaths is necessary for universal adoption of autonomous... Read more →

Tel Aviv-based TriEye, a fabless semiconductor company that developed the first CMOS-based Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) sensing solution, is collaborating with Tier 1 automotive supplier Hitachi Astemo to enhance the capabilities of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for adverse weather and low-light conditions by accelerating the commercialization of TriEye technology. TriEye’s... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz and Luminar Technologies announced a partnership to accelerate development of future automated driving technologies for passenger cars. A central component of this is the optimal access to new technologies and global competencies. The intent of this partnership is to leverage the foundational lidar technology from Luminar with the aim... Read more →

The Fisker Ocean all-electric SUV is equipped with an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) called Fisker Intelligent Pilot. The ADAS platform integrates four types of sensors: a surround-view camera suite; a camera-based driver-monitoring system; ultrasonic technology; and a Digital-Imaging Radar System that Fisker expects will be first to market when... Read more →

Seeing Machines, the advanced computer vision technology company that designs AI-powered operator monitoring systems to improve transport safety, announced a collaboration with Ambarella, an AI vision silicon company, to bring integrated Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) and occupant and driver monitoring system (OMS and DMS) solutions to the market. This... Read more →

Ambarella, an AI vision silicon company, announced its new Artificial Intelligence Image Signal Processor (AISP). Ambarella’s new AI-based ISP architecture uses neural networks to augment the image processing done by the hardware ISP integrated into its SoCs. This approach enables color imaging with low light at very low lux levels... Read more →

RoboSense (Suteng Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.), a developer of smart LiDAR system technology, announced a strategic investment agreement and a strategic cooperation framework agreement with BYD. RoboSense’s technology portfolio comprises LiDAR sensors, AI algorithms and IC chipsets. RoboSense says that it will keep pace with BYD, continuously upgrade its technology... Read more →

Plus (formerly Plus.ai), a global provider of self-driving truck technology, will collaborate with Teledyne FLIR on a development project to explore the addition of thermal cameras to the sensor stack used with Plus’s Level 4 autonomous driving technology. Plus takes a multi-modal sensor approach and currently uses lidar, cameras, and... Read more →

Honda Research Institute USA is conducting a pilot program in Ohio to evaluate a system that uses GPS coordinates and sensors such as cameras to collect real-time road condition information that can be shared with road operators. Honda is collaborating with the Ohio Department of Transportation and plans to start... Read more →

In July, the BMW Group, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), called on the global quantum computing community to develop innovative quantum algorithms for four specific industrial challenges and to test them on real quantum computing technologies. One winning team has now been selected for each of the... Read more →

A new report from Juniper Research has found that the automotive sensors market will grow to more than $92 billion by 2026—a 30% increase over 2021. This growth will be driven by sensors that enable automated vehicles and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). Sensors monitoring various vehicle safety parameters in... Read more →

Neural Propulsion Systems (NPS), a developer of autonomous sensing platforms, announced that Dr. Lawrence Burns is joining as an Executive Advisor. Dr. Burns is the former Corporate Vice President of Research & Development and Planning at General Motors (earlier post). He has also advised numerous companies—including Google Self-Driving Cars/Waymo for... Read more →

Autonomous driving company Aurora has released its first commercial beta of the Aurora Driver, which consists of the hardware, software, and data services needed to safely operate an autonomous Aurora-powered vehicle. Aurora Driver Beta is currently hauling loads between Dallas and Houston, TX, in a commercial pilot of Aurora Horizon,... Read more →

Honda plans to apply the next generation of its advanced suite of safety and driver-assistive technologies—Honda Sensing 360—to all new Honda and Acura models in the US by 2030. With an expanded sensory range around the entire vehicle, Honda Sensing 360 removes blind spots to enhance collision avoidance, while also... Read more →

The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) announced the acceptance of six research papers in the field of machine learning at the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV). The research advances understanding across various tasks crucial for robotic perception, including semantic segmentation, 3D object detection and multi-object tracking. Over the last six... Read more →

Quanergy Systems, Inc., a leading provider of Optical Phased Array (OPA)-based solid state LiDAR sensors and smart 3D solutions for automotive and IoT, announced the successful driving demonstration of its S3 Series LiDAR, a solid-state LiDAR sensor using an industry-first Optical Phased Array (OPA) technology and a scalable CMOS silicon... Read more →

Israel-based Foresight Autonomous Holdings Ltd. (earlier post) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a multiphase business cooperation with Wuhu Chery Technology Co., LTD (Chery), a global Chinese vehicle manufacturer and Xuanyuan Idrive Technology Co. Ltd. (XY), a subsidiary of Wuhan Guide Infrared Co. (Guide Infrared), a leading Chinese developer... Read more →

Volvo Cars’ forthcoming fully electric flagship SUV will have industry-leading safety technology as standard. The fully electric successor to Volvo Cars’ XC90, to be revealed in 2022, will come with state-of-the-art sensors, including LiDAR technology developed by Luminar and an autonomous driving computer powered by the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip,... Read more →

BMW i Ventures invested in Kodiak Robotics, Inc., a developer of self-driving long-haul trucking technology. The funds from the BMW i Ventures investment help Kodiak expand its team and fleet, as well as continue to develop its self-driving technology purpose-built for long-haul trucks. Kodiak is led by a team of... Read more →

Toyota has selected ZF and Mobileye, an Intel company, to develop Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for use in multiple vehicle platforms starting in the next few years. As part of the agreement, ZF, one of the world’s number one producers of automotive cameras driven by Mobileye technology, will also... Read more →