Dr. Jürgen Dickmann was Global Radar Lead for highly automated and autonomous vehicles at Mercedes-Benz until this month. He was responsible for the entire value chain, from research through advanced development and serial accountability until vehicle launches, including product strategy and roadmaps. In previous assignments, he managed the transfer of sensor and perception technologies and led projects in radar, laser scanners, and sensor fusion. His expertise encompasses AI concepts for automotive radar, and using radar technology for comprehensive environmental perception.
From 1986 to 1992, he contributed groundbreaking research at the AEG Research Center into III/V semiconductor fabrication and millimeter-wave technology, advancing military radar systems. He earned his diploma in electrical engineering at the University of Duisburg in 1984, and his Dr.-Ing. (PhD) at RWTH Aachen in 1991, focusing on III/V semiconductor based high-frequency semiconductor devices and integrated circuits. He is the author and co-author of 230 publications. In 1993, he received the ITG/VDE Award. Now he serves as an expert consultant on ADAS and sensor suites, and has joined the DVN Sensing team as a senior advisor.
DVN: Jürgen, we are pleased that you join us in our ongoing work to develop an enthusiastic, active DVN Sensing community. What brought you to join our team?
Jürgen Dickmann: Thank you for the warm welcome! I’m truly excited to be part of this dynamic and forward-thinking community. What brought me here is a deep curiosity for innovation in sensing technologies and their real-world applications. I would love to stimulate cross-functional discussions along the chain of effects from sensor technology to driving function. Classically or via E2E, in order to pave the way for more effective solutions. I’m looking forward to learning, contributing, and collaborating with passionate people who share the same vision for progress.
DVN: What is your read on the initial steps of the DVN Sensing community? How do you foresee your contribution?
J.D.: As a newcomer to DVN, I’m impressed by the community’s early openness and its bias toward practical exchange over communication. The way forward, in my view, is to deliberately connect orthogonal expertise – camera, lidar, radar, mapping, compute, software safety – to spark cross-pollination, including between competing technologies. We should pair creative forums/coffee breaks (salons, challenge sprints, curated tech deep-dives) with concrete outputs (reference problems, shared datasets, interface templates) and targeted matchmaking so potential business partners can find each other. My role is to moderate: create a safe, neutral space, frame the right questions, keep us outcome-oriented, and help turn discussion into pilot collaborations that move ADAS/AD toward better, future-proof solutions.
DVN: Our annual conferences attract more than 200 eager participants. What do you expect from this year’s event at the Dorint Pallas Hotel in Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt?
J.D.: I’m really looking forward to this year’s DVN Sensing & Applications Conference in Wiesbaden. For the first time, we’ve invited leading experts from both the radar and AI communities, as well as key players from the software stack level. This broader integration will enable us to connect all relevant sensor domains with application and stack companies, offering a truly comprehensive view of the ADAS and automated driving ecosystem. I expect this cross-disciplinary exchange to foster innovative ideas and new collaborations that move the industry forward.
DVN: What are the key parameters influencing the introduction uptake of high-resolution radar? Will it spread from luxury models to popular-price familiy cars?
J.D.: In a few sentences it’s hard to do this justice. More detail is in my talks on ResearchGate or Google Scholar. The storyline is simple: radar was doubted around 2013 with the buzz around stereo cameras and laser scanner introduction, yet since then radars have multiplied in cars, not only in privately owned cars, but also in serious robo-car efforts. Why? They’re reliably good in real weather, everywhere, and cheap to integrate. Today many L2 cars run roughly five radars; L3 and beyond can reach into the low teens. High-resolution (imaging like) radar won’t stay a luxury, it will trickle quickly into family cars as costs fall and platforms standardize. Most market outlooks call for sharp growth in radar content per vehicle over the next product cycles.
DVN: How do you see the competition or complementarity of high-definition radar and lidar?
J.D.: While high-definition radars are a cost-effective and quality of servive enhancing solution, lidars offer unparalleled accuracy and resolution. My approach was always to leverage the strengths of each technology, using sensor fusion, to meet rigorous safety standards and ensure reliable autonomy across all conditions. This synergy aims not to replace but to complement each other, advancing safety and efficiency in future autonomous vehicles. In the future, the efficency driven re-consideration of safety decomposition and redundancy requirements will determine which sensors will experience stronger market growth.
DVN: What message would you like to convey to the DVN Sensing community?
J.D.: My message is simple and optimistic: L2 ADAS is growing at a remarkable pace worldwide, proving the demand is real. To achieve similar success in privately owned cars at L3 and beyond, we must deliver cost-effective, scalable solutions. That will require closer collaboration across the whole stack – from customer functions and safety cases down to sensors and compute. If we align around practical outcomes and work together, this community can turn great ideas into widely deployed, trusted systems.
