As part of Audi’s goal of full autonomous driving in urban areas, its wholly owned subsidiary Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID) has partnered with Silicon Valley company Aeva to create a next-generation sensor.
Aeva will help build a 4D lidar technology sensing system and equip AID’s new Audi e-tron test vehicles, which are being put through their paces in Munich, Germany.
“In this phase, it is important that we keep pushing our Strategic Partnership Program forward and work together with the best players in the market. Aeva represents another important step in our goal to drive fully autonomously across urban areas within the next few years. Aeva’s 4D lidar technology is a clear top choice for perception with its unique combination of long range, instantaneous velocity measurements at cm/s precision and robustness to interferences in a single package,” said Alexandre Haag, AID´s CTO.
Unlike most conventional time-of-flight lidar technology where high-power pulses of light are used and the flight time for each pulse is measured to create a 3D map of the environment, Aeva’s unique sensing technology is based on light interference and uses continuous low-power laser to sense instant velocity of every point per frame, at ranges up to 300m. This produces a 4D map of the environment and, in particular, the velocity information drastically enhances the detection and classification of pedestrians and other critical objects.
“From early on, it was crucial for us to work closely with a seasoned strategic partner that could help us showcase the impact of our 4D lidar’s differentiating features in unblocking the limitations of current perception solutions. Over the past year we’ve worked closely with AID and VW Group engineering teams through a comprehensive validation process toward meeting the requirements of the next urban autonomous driving system,” said Mina Rezk, Aeva co-founder.
Interested in lidar technology? You can’t afford to miss the Vision – LiDAR, Sensors & Mapping Technology session at the Autonomous Vehicle Test & Development Symposium, which takes place at Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo in Stuttgart on May 21-23.