EE Times Looks to AEye to Answer the Question, “Do ADAS cars and robocars really need lidars?

EETimes explores AEye’s use of artificial intelligence to discriminately collect data information that only matters to an AV’s path planning, instead of assigning every pixel the same priority. According to VSI’s Phil Magney, “this is really edge fusion as the device is fusing the raw data with the camera data before any classification occurs.”
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EE Times Looks to AEye to Answer the Question, “Do ADAS cars and robocars really need lidars? — The Future of Autonomous Vehicles: Part I – Think Like a Robot, Perceive Like a HumanAEye Introduces Advanced Mobility Product for the Autonomous Vehicle MarketThe Future of Autonomous Vehicles: Part II – Blind Technology without Compassion Is RuthlessAEye’s iDAR Shatters Both Range and Scan Rate Performance Records for Automotive Grade LiDARElon Musk Is Right: LiDAR Is a Crutch (Sort of.)Gartner Names AEye Cool Vendor in AI for Computer VisionAEye Introduces Next Generation of Artificial Perception: New Dynamic Vixels™AEye’s $40M Series B Includes Numerous Automotive Leaders Including Subaru, Hella, LG, and SKAutoSens Names AEye Most Exciting Start-Up in the Automotive Imaging SectorAEye Granted Foundational Patents For Core Solid-State MEMs-Based Agile LiDAR And Embedded AI Technology

Hella and AEye Extend Strategic Partnership to Deliver Sensing and Perception Solutions for ADAS and Autonomous Driving

Cooperation Focus in the Field of LiDAR Sensor and iDAR System Development
First results will be already demonstrated at CES 2019 in Las Vegas
“HELLA is an ideal strategic partner for AEye as we look to ramp production capabilities to meet the demand of our OEM partners. HELLA has an excellent track record working with automotive OEMs, and I anticipate great synergies as we look to roll out next generation perception capabilities that meet their needs both today, and in the future.”

Lippstadt / Las Vegas, January 8, 2019 – HELLA, one of the world’s leading automotive suppliers for lighting and electronics, and AEye, a world leader in artificial perception systems and the developer of iDAR™, seek to extend their strategic partnership to deliver customized sensing and perception solutions for ADAS Automated Driving (AD) based on AEye’s iDAR technology. Both parties will combine their complementary know-how and capabilities in their respective domains.

AEye’s iDAR artificial perception system leads the industry in range and scan rate performance for automotive-grade LiDAR. iDAR is a new form of intelligent data collection that fuses 1550 nanometer (nm), solid-state agile LiDAR with a low-light HD camera and embedded AI to intelligently capture data at the sensor level. HELLA will bring in its high competence in the field of embedded software and image processing as well as its automotive experience and industrialization capabilities along the entire supply chain to leverage and extend this platform. This joint development effort will bring best-in-class Level 3 ADAS solutions to global automotive OEMs. AEye and HELLA will be demonstrating first results of their already existing cooperation at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, January 8th to 11th, 2019 (Booth #2100, Westgate Convention Center).

“HELLA is an ideal strategic partner for AEye as we look to ramp production capabilities to meet the demand of our OEM partners,” said Blair LaCorte, President of AEye. “HELLA has an excellent track record working with automotive OEMs, and I anticipate great synergies as we look to roll out next generation perception capabilities that meet their needs both today, and in the future.”

Frank Petznick, responsible for Automated Driving at HELLA, says: “HELLA is actively promoting the trend towards AD. The collaboration with AEye will provide us with additional opportunities to catalyze new functionality for ADAS and AD solutions that will redefine performance.”

In December, Hella Ventures became a major shareholder of AEye as part of its $40M Series B round of financing. The first joint development project will start immediately, with the objective of a SOP in 2022.

For more information about AEye and Hella’s partnership, please visit AEye’s CES Booth #2100 at the Westgate Convention Center in Las Vegas.

About HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA, Lippstadt
HELLA is a global, family-owned company, listed on the stock exchange, with more than 40,000 employees at over 125 locations in some 35 countries. The HELLA Group develops and manufactures products for lighting technology and electronics for the automotive industry and also has one of the largest retail organizations for automotive parts, accessories, diagnostics, and services within Europe. With more than 7,000 people working in research and development, HELLA is one of the most important innovation drivers on the market. Furthermore, with sales of € 7.1 billion in the fiscal year of 2017/2018, the HELLA Group is one of the top 40 automotive parts suppliers in the world and one of the 100 largest German industrial companies.

About AEye
AEye is an artificial perception pioneer and creator of iDAR™, a perception system that acts as the eyes and visual cortex of autonomous vehicles. Since its demonstration of its solid-state LiDAR scanner in 2013, AEye has pioneered breakthroughs in intelligent sensing. The company is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and backed by world-renowned investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Taiwania Capital, Intel Capital, & Airbus Ventures.


For additional information please contact:
Dr. Markus Richter
Company spokesman
HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA
Rixbecker Straße 75
59552 Lippstadt, Germany
Germany
Phone: +49 2941 38-7545
Fax: +49 2941 38-477545
[email protected]
www.hella.com

AEye Media Contact
AEye, Inc.
Jennifer Deitsch
[email protected]
925-400-4366

Hella and AEye Extend Strategic Partnership to Deliver Sensing and Perception Solutions for ADAS and Autonomous Driving — LG Electronics and AEye Announce Strategic Partnership to Address Sensing and Perception Needs of ADAS MarketThe Future of Autonomous Vehicles: Part I – Think Like a Robot, Perceive Like a HumanAEye’s iDAR Shatters Both Range and Scan Rate Performance Records for Automotive Grade LiDARAEye Announces Industry Leading Family of Perception Sensors for ADAS SolutionsAEye’s $40M Series B Includes Numerous Automotive Leaders Including Subaru, Hella, LG, and SKAEye Granted Foundational Patents For Core Solid-State MEMs-Based Agile LiDAR And Embedded AI TechnologyAEye Introduces Next Generation of Artificial Perception: New Dynamic Vixels™AEye Introduces Advanced Mobility Product for the Autonomous Vehicle MarketGartner Names AEye Cool Vendor in AI for Computer VisionThe Future of Autonomous Vehicles: Part II – Blind Technology without Compassion Is Ruthless

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Tesla’s Software-First Approach Foreshadows The Future Of Cars

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Published on January 6th, 2019 |

by Guest Contributor

Tesla’s Software-First Approach Foreshadows The Future Of Cars

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January 6th, 2019 by Guest Contributor

Originally published on EVANNEX.
By Charles Morris

Everyone knows that Tesla is an innovative company, and almost everyone knows that its cars don’t need gasoline. But as Lou Steinberg points out in a recent article entitled “Some of the Greatest Innovations are not What You Think,” electrification is not Tesla’s only innovation, and when it comes to competing in the global auto market, it may not even be the most important.

Tesla’s center stack touchscreen display in the Model S (Image: Tesla)

In Steinberg’s view, Tesla’s most important innovations stem from the fact that it’s the first company to approach cars the Silicon Valley way: as a software problem. Steinberg perceived the power of “tin wrapped software” as the CTO of Symbol Technologies. “Symbol built hardware, but was able to use software to tune how it worked in different environments. Flexible software meant that the hardware behaved one way in a hospital (long-battery life for a 12-hour shift) and another way in a retail store (higher-power radios to overcome dead zones).”

“I bought the Model S because it was the first time I had ever seen someone treat a car as a software problem,” Steinberg writes. Sure, modern cars are full of software, but their builders are hardware companies, and automotive hardware is a mature market with few opportunities to disrupt, or even to differentiate their products.

Tesla has changed everything — for the first time, a car can improve itself over time via software upgrades. “Aside from navigation maps, all of my cars [he has owned many] had features that were largely fixed on the day they left the factory,” says Steinberg. “Not my Tesla. Every month, it gets software updates that make it better. It learned how to park. Then it learned how to do it better. It opens my garage door when I come home. It improved its self-driving. It improved the stereo. It added anti-theft features. After one year, my car is safer and better to drive than the day I bought it. My Tesla driving experience keeps improving through patches and updates.”

Tesla owner describes why he loves the car’s software updates: “It’s the feeling that your car is always new.” (YouTube: Tesla)

Steinberg vows never again to buy “a car whose capabilities are frozen in time,” and once they’ve experienced the ever-improving Tesla ownership experience, most drivers probably feel the same.

Another important but overlooked innovation that the Sages of Silicon Valley have made is to free up constrained resources. The Tesla Rangers — mobile teams that perform minor service at customer locations — provide an example. Why are the Rangers such an innovation? Because they free up resources at service centers. “The most constrained real estate at a service center is in the service bays,” Steinberg writes. “You can hire more technicians if demand increases, but the service bays are a big capital investment that can’t be flexed up and down. The second most valuable real estate at a showroom is in the parking lot. You can fill it with cars to sell, but only if you don’t have a lot of cars you already sold taking up space while waiting for a service bay to become available. Cars waiting for service, especially warranty service, crowd out cars that are ready to be sold and delivered. Add to this the fact that many owners will ask for a loaner car, and you need a fleet of loaners. It all costs money.”

Thus, the Tesla Rangers represent not just a convenience for customers (though they certainly are that), but also “a way to optimize constrained resources and save capital. It frees up the parking lots to sell and deliver cars.”

And the third and greatest innovation of all? Tesla isn’t selling just cars. There’s a saying in the software business: “People don’t buy software, they buy a roadmap.” In other words, customers, especially large companies, don’t buy software based only on what it can do today, but based on their confidence that it will continue to get better and keep up with future needs. Once you conceive of a car as software, the capabilities you can offer to customers are almost unlimited.

Tesla uses the phone as a “key” for the Model 3 (Image via Tesla)

“Tesla isn’t limited to promoting the current features,” writes Steinberg. “Tesla and Musk are either lauded for offering a vision or panned for over-promising, but they offer a glimpse of what your car will be able to do in the future. Not another car you have to purchase again…the very same car you buy today. My car knows how to park, and will someday have full autonomous driving. Why shouldn’t it drop me off in front of the store and then find a parking space on its own?”

Many stock market observers believe that the high valuation of TSLA stock has a lot to do with investors’ belief that the company will someday offer full self-driving capability, an innovation that could have even greater implications for mobility and society than electrification. And it’s not just the stock price. A Mercedes or a BMW is a great automobile, but once you buy it, it’s going to be the same vehicle you bought until the day you sell it. If, instead, you could have a machine that’s going to get better and better, and eventually be able to drive itself, how much more would you be willing to pay?

“By treating cars as software, and constantly pushing updates, Tesla can command a premium price today by selling the roadmap,” concludes Steinberg. “Other manufacturers may innovate incrementally, but as the character ‘bored Elon Musk’ once tweeted, ‘Incremental innovation is really just adjusting for inflation.’”

About the Author

Guest Contributor is many, many people. We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people. 😀

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