Baraja, creator of the Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology for autonomous vehicles, and Tier IV, an open-source autonomous driving leader, have announced a new collaboration to research and develop a new software-defined sensor suite combining best-in-class LiDAR and HDR cameras to enable the future of autonomous vehicles.
Joining forces in the development of this new system for the first time, the suite will bring together Baraja’s leading Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology with Tier IV’s sensor fusion software and HDR cameras, creating a perception solution designed to provide optimal performance in the widest possible range of situations and environments for autonomous vehicles. The two companies will collaborate on building a reference unit that will form the basis of future commercial product opportunities with automotive OEMs.
The automotive-grade HDR cameras — which provide high dynamic range, LED flicker mitigation, and on-board lens distortion correction — provide a high-quality, 2D representation of the scene, while Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR provides a high-definition, 3D pointcloud that enables greater density of data. Together with Tier IV’s sensor fusion software, the resulting data will provide a rich, accurate representation of the physical world for automotive perception algorithms that will enable autonomous vehicles to make better decisions, faster in real-time.
Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR is the same technology platform underpinning Spectrum HD, Baraja’s new breakthrough LiDAR platform. With Spectrum-Scan™ Tier IV will be able to access unrivaled LiDAR technology to ensure its sensor fusion suite will not only be able to adapt to different driving environment scenarios, but also provide previously unseen benefits in assisting hardware integration into vehicles. This includes the ability to foveate reliably, detect and focus on objects in the field of view, and dynamically change point density on the fly.
“We are excited to work with Tier IV as we embark on this journey to enable true autonomous vehicle technology for consumers,” said Federico Collarte, Founder and CEO of Baraja.” With this combined solution, we’ll be able to provide a dynamic and configurable feature system that can be adopted by a broader range of vehicles as they move to Level 2+ autonomy and beyond.”
Baraja and Tier IV are committed to enabling the future of autonomous driving for consumers and this agreement will help move that future closer. The features and benefits of this next-generation offering will provide enhanced perception ability and enable greater reliability for long-range detection and object classification while handling edge cases, especially under more extreme environments such as heavy rain and fog.
“Baraja’s Spectrum-Scan™ technology with our powerful sensor fusion software will create the perfect combination of high-definition sensors needed to make autonomous driving a reality for more people.” said Shinpei Kato, Founder and CTO of Tier IV, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Autoware Foundation. “We are looking forward to providing an enhanced Autoware-based reference design solution to the industry through this work.”
