Baraja in Detroit, a creator of LiDAR technology for autonomous vehicles, has announced a collaboration with Tier IV to research and develop a new software-defined sensor suite combining LiDAR and high dynamic range cameras to enable the future of AVs.
The suite will bring together Baraja’s 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.
“We are excited to work with Tier IV as we embark on this journey to enable true autonomous vehicle technology for consumers,” says 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.”
With Spectrum-Scan, Tier IV will be able 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.
Tier IV, an open-source autonomous driving company based in Japan, will provide the HDR cameras. These provide LED flicker mitigation and on-board lens distortion correction alongside the dynamic range. This provides a high-quality two-dimensional representation of the scene, while Baraja’s tech will be able to increase data density for a more accurate three-dimensional representation when integrated.
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.” says Shinpei Kato, founder and CTO of Tier IV. “We are looking forward to providing an enhanced Autoware-based reference design solution to the industry through this work.”
