Why is Toyota, the world's largest automaker, Luminar's laser radar?

Toyota's self-driving cars are equipped with Luminar's LiDAR system. Even Silicon Valley's high-tech companies are hosting a 100,000-square-foot cruise ship dock in San Francisco, which is a luxury. However, Luminar, a high-tech company focused on the emerging autonomous industry segment, is a 22-year-old founder, Austin Russell, who is happy to rent the number 35 at $20,000 a day. Of course, this is not a celebration for chic or extravagance, but because this is one of the few spaces in San Francisco that is large enough to show the power of the LiDAR system that Luminar spent five years developing. According to the news from Memes, Toyota, the world's largest automaker, intending to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles, will use Luminar's LiDAR system in its autonomous vehicles. In the spacious 35-head warehouse, Rueeell demonstrated their LiDAR system. On a shelf 200 meters away from the LiDAR sensor, a black "advertising board" of approximately 30 x 30 inches square was placed. This is not an ordinary "advertising board". This material is called Permaflect (a new type of diffuse coating developed by Labsphere, a subsidiary of Halma's subsidiary in the UK). It can only reflect 10% of incident light. (Priced at $10,000 to $20,000), specifically for verification of the "Uniform Spectral Response" feature. This is a special tool for testing LiDAR sensors. The LiDAR sensor is similar to a radar. It calculates the distance between the object by emitting a laser beam and measuring the reflected light of the object, thus creating a 3D image of the surrounding environment.

Lumiar's LiDAR sensing system, Russell, shows the readout of the LiDAR system. In these colorful maps, the black "advertising board" is orange. Other objects in the test environment, such as stacked tires, mannequins, parked Tesla Model S and BMW i3 (BMW small pure electric vehicles), are very clearly presented in LiDAR sensing. In the map. Even the pigeons that entered the scene, every step of walking back and forth, is clearly visible.

Lumiar's LiDAR sensing system test readout "The current autonomous vehicles are not reliable enough to 'see' the surrounding environment," Russell said. "They need better hardware in principle to get better data." Luminar, a low-key company, was born for this purpose. According to Russell, the shoebox-sized LiDAR scanner has 10 times the detection range and 50 times the resolution compared to its competitors. Russell's technical solutions have made it a competitive advantage in competition with many autonomous vehicle developers. LiDAR sensor development engineers believe that LiDAR will be the key component for future autonomous vehicles. Dozens of companies, large and small, are striving to develop a perfect balance of detection range, resolution, manufacturability, reliability and cost. LiDAR unit. LiDAR has higher accuracy than radar sensors and does not rely on ambient light like traditional cameras. However, compared to cameras and radar sensors, the application of LiDAR sensors in automobiles has only recently emerged, and there are still some problems. Current LiDAR hardware is not suitable for automotive applications, exposure to various shocks, vibrations, and pollution on the road. Moreover, there are different voices in the autonomous vehicle market. For example, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, believes that the cost of installing a LiDAR system in a consumer car is too high. He is gambling on the Tesla electric car, using high-quality cameras and artificial intelligence to achieve safe auto-cruise. Russell holds a different view. He firmly believes that LiDAR is a must-have sensor for autonomous vehicles. LiDAR can provide the high-quality data required by its software for autonomous vehicles in any environment, and ultimately make the right driving decisions. Russell is a gifted person. He saw the application of LiDAR in the automotive market about six years ago. At the age of 17, when he first entered Stanford University, he received $100,000 from Thiel Fellowship (a scholarship founded by Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal), and he founded Luminar. He developed his own hardware solution, using a cost-effective InGaAs instead of silicon, designed a unique chip that uses a more sensitive laser at 1550 nm for 40 times more power, while competing LiDAR sensors typically use A laser with a wavelength of 905 nm. Russell’s adventure decision many years ago seems to be paying off. Luminar now employs 250 people and has opened branches in the southwest of Palo Alto. This spring, Luminar began mass production and first trial production of 100 LiDAR units, the next round of planned production increased to 10,000 units. According to previous news from Memes Consulting, in March 2017, Luminar completed financing of $36 million from Canvas Ventures, GVA Capital and 1517 Fund. Now, the auto giant Toyota has begun to strongly support the startup, and recently announced that it is equipped with Luminar's LiDAR sensing system on its latest 2.1 self-driving car platform. The world's largest automaker did not disclose the company's autonomous vehicle development plan until the end of 2015, and announced that Toyota will invest $1 billion in artificial intelligence, robotics development, and will be in Silicon Valley, Massachusetts, USA. And R&D labs in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Luminar's LiDAR system installed on Toyota's self-driving roof "Environmental awareness is the key to autonomous vehicles," said James Kuffner, chief technology officer at Toyota Research (James Kuffner is a founding member of the Google Self-Driver Program and Leading Google's robotics project for many years.), "LiDAR sensor is one of the most critical sensor modules, because it can provide a wide range of detailed 3D environmental information." Only by obtaining high-quality environmental data, self-driving cars Software can perform effective data analysis. “We evaluated various types of prototype LiDAR products,” Kuffer said. “Luminar has developed a novel solution that can effectively reach 200 meters, which is a very important indicator.” However, Toyota spokesperson The quantity and amount of purchases for Luminar's LiDAR units were not disclosed. Luminar has not yet fully won the LiDAR competition, but cooperation with Toyota will be a very important milestone!