Cepton Technologies, Inc., a provider of LiDAR-based products for automotive, smart cities, smart spaces, and industrial applications, announced a new partnership with ALP.Lab, the Austrian Light Vehicle Proving Region for Automated Driving. The goal of the partnership is to build LiDAR-equipped testing environments for studying complicated road driving situations using real-world traffic data—a first for Austria.
ALP.Lab consists of an alliance of automotive suppliers such as Magna and AVL and partnerships with research organizations like Virtual Vehicle Research, Joanneum Research, and the Graz University of Technology. The goal of the alliance is to enable solutions to reduce accidents and improve traffic flow.
Through this new partnership, ALP.Lab has deployed Cepton’s Helius smart LiDAR System to capture real-time, 3D traffic data to support the training of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms used for the scenario-based testing of ADAS (advanced driver assistance) and AV (autonomous vehicle) features. The collected data will make it possible to predict vehicle trajectories at intersections and enable traffic data analysis for traffic flow optimization. The Helius system uses a number of Vista-P60 LiDAR sensors, installed at the corners of road intersections and traffic roundabouts, complementing other sensor types including radar.
For traffic monitoring and analysis applications, LiDAR is said to perform better than other sensor types in many cases. The sensor type offers 24/7 availability thanks to its perception capabilities in various lighting conditions, such as nighttime darkness, shadows, and the glare of strong headlights. It also offers higher angular resolution compared to radar and minimizes false negatives and false positives.
Vista-P60 LiDAR systems, powered by Cepton’s Micro Motion Technology (MMT), offer a detection range of 200 m (656 ft) at 30% reflectivity and an angular resolution of 0.25°, making it possible to accurately detect arriving and departing vehicles and pedestrians at a distance of up to about 170 m (558 ft) around intersections.
Helius perception software adds a layer of intelligence by taking the LiDAR point cloud data from a connected network of sensors and delivering real-time, 3D information on object dimensions, locations, and velocities. This enables accurate tracking and classifying of the different objects involved in a traffic situation. As the software and sensors used by ALP.Lab only captures anonymized data, it protects the privacy of pedestrians and vehicles while feeding rich traffic data for deeper analysis.
“We primarily selected Cepton’s LiDAR solutions because of their durability and precise detection capabilities even at high vehicle speeds,” said Christian Schwarzl, Director of Testing and Validation from ALP.Lab. “With the information the LiDAR sensors provide, our data is as close to real-life as it gets. Therefore, we are able to create enhanced-simulation and AV-testing environments as well as detailed analyses of the traffic flow.”
“LiDAR plays a crucial role in the future of autonomous mobility, by not only serving as the ‘eyes’ of vehicles but also bringing intelligence to the traffic infrastructure supporting safe autonomy,” said Dr. Jun Pei, CEO of Cepton. “To make ADAS and AV capabilities available to the broader public, it is crucial to gather information on traffic scenarios that all vehicles are likely to be confronted with, in order to generate proper testing environments and ensure safer roads.”
Cepton’s new partnership follows a number of additional announcements from the San Jose, CA-based company, including the addition of Hull Xu as Vice President of Finance and Strategy announced in January. He will oversee financial reporting and planning, capital raising, investor relations, and corporate development activities for Cepton. Xu previously worked for Royal Bank of Canada, where he led the automotive technology and semiconductor investment banking coverage and advised technology companies on equity and debt capital raise as well as mergers and acquisitions.
“As a former investment banker in the rapidly evolving auto tech sector, I have tremendous respect and admiration for the Cepton team,” said Xu. “They have created a series of game-changing LiDAR solutions for mass adoption. I am joining Cepton at an inflection point to help the company through its next phase of growth.”
Xu joins the Cepton executive team led by Co-founder Pei, CTO & Co-founder Mark McCord, CFO Winston Fu, and CMO Dr. T. R. Ramachandran. The company was founded in 2016 and develops LiDAR technologies for a variety of markets, including smart cities, smart spaces, and smart industrial applications, in addition to the automotive industry.
Earlier in January, Cepton shook up the ADAS technology industry when it unveiled its new Nova miniature LiDAR sensor. Priced at less than $100 for high-volume automotive applications, it weighs less than 350 g (12.3 oz) and measures 3.5 cm (1.4 in) wide x 3.5 cm (1.4 in) tall x 7.5 cm (3.0 in) deep, making it extremely compact and easily embeddable.
The wide-angle near-range LiDAR sensor is intended to address major gaps in proximity detection of objects with current sensor technologies. Despite its compact size, it features high-resolution 3D imaging with a high field-of-view (FOV) of 90-120° (H) and 60-90° (V), depending on the configuration.
Like the Vista-P60, Nova is powered by Cepton’s MMT. The non-rotational, mirrorless, and frictionless Nova can be hidden all around a vehicle to provide a complete 360° view of its immediate surroundings. It also has an angular resolution of up to 0.3°, with a maximum range of up to 30 m (98 ft), making it good for ADAS and AV applications such as blind-spot detection, small object detection, automated park assist, and free space estimation around the vehicle.
Cepton was already one of the first suppliers in the industry to announce a volume price of less than $1000 for the Vista-X90. Consistent with that trend, Nova is said to be the first high FOV, near-range LiDAR with a price point under $100 for high-automotive volumes. These steps are part of Cepton’s objective to bring to market scalable, mass-market LiDAR solutions that enable the automotive industry to substantially accelerate safety and autonomy innovations in the next generation of vehicles.
“The Nova is an industry-first, transformational LiDAR that fundamentally changes the game for near-field sensing,” said Pei. “Currently, consumer vehicles have been limited to technologies that cannot facilitate true Level 3 or Level 4 autonomy for the mass market. Radars, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors suffer from high false positives and false negatives. Rotational LiDARs are not embeddable, making them impractical for consumer vehicles. Near-range flash LiDARs either lack the wide field-of-view or cannot match the power and size requirements to be discretely hidden all around the vehicle. The Nova represents path-breaking LiDAR innovation for the automotive industry in that it achieves a level of performance that is unmatched for such a small form factor.”
