Continental are expecting their new high-resolution close-range 3D flash lidar (HFL) sensor to find applications in commercial vehicles and off-highway machines this year.
Continental’s ADAS Business Development and Sales Head Thomas Laux (photo) says the new hardware “is automotive grade and solid state, meaning no moving parts. It’s a bunch of semiconductors, which is ideal for commercial vehicle and even more so for the off-highway environment—they don’t have a lot of hours [of operation] but their environments can be pretty rigorous.” He pointed specifically to the IP6K9K packaging and 3D Global Shutter feature that eliminates motion distortion and enables persistence mode and geo-registration of point cloud, as features responsive to extreme needs.
Laux, who is located in Carpinteria, California as part of Continental Advanced Lidar Solutions, was working for a Tier-2 supplier acquired by Continental a few years ago. “We started off with 22 engineers and now we have 300, working across domains on everything from the software to the test and validation, which is one of the most crucial pieces,” Laux said. About 25% of the activity in developing its automotive-grade lidar sensor is devoted to test and validation, he added.
“For this sensor we designed short range first. We thought this was a bigger issue, which turned out we’re right,” Laux said. The HFL110 lidar sensor has a 50-metre range, and it’s being supplied on a sample basis to commercial vehicle and off-highway manufacturers for evaluation. Application areas include agriculture, construction, mining, UAV delivery, and precision infrastructure inspection. Series production is expected by the end of this year, and there are already launch customers for automotive and off-highway applications.
