Partnership works towards sensor for autonomous driving

Alexandre Haag, AID´s CTO, said: “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.”

Mina Rezk, Aeva Co-Founder, added: “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 & VW group engineering teams through a comprehensive validation process toward meeting the requirements of the next urban autonomous driving system.”

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 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.

Aeva’s technology is also free from interference from other sensors or sunlight. Together, these features strengthen AID’s proprietary perception capabilities and fundamentally improve the safety of autonomous driving vehicles. Aeva’s system is also scalable by design, with the integration of all core optical components on its proprietary chip, which is a critical requirement for AID’s mass scale goal.

Soroush Salehian, Aeva Co-Founder, said: “Audi’s AID is an excellent strategic partner for Aeva. Its position as the centre of excellence for autonomous driving within VW Group has provided us with invaluable feedback to continue developing our product for mass scale. We are excited to work alongside AID toward realising a truly differentiated autonomous mobility system that is safe, simple & scalable in the next couple of years.”