AEye, Inc. today showcased its vision for adaptive lidar in software-defined vehicles during a press conference at AutoSens Detroit. The company demonstrated the design of its 4Sight intelligent sensing platform, which enables automotive OEMs to embed the same lidar sensor in multiple locations, optimizing performance for vehicle-specific packaging and integration using its proprietary sensing software.

With its adaptive lidar, AEye says that automakers can more easily advance their pursuit of the software-defined car. The use of a singular platform, configurable through software, provides automakers with greater vehicle design and aesthetic flexibility.

The company also claims an immeasurable design advantage over hardware-centric lidar systems that do not adapt to the evolving performance and integration requirements of OEMs. In addition, the 4Sight platform’s software configurability is designed to enable over-the-air updates to improve a vehicle’s autonomous safety features over time without having to replace sensors.

“AEye customers gain the distinct advantage of utilizing a single platform that can be modified for any vehicle model and application, increasing adoption and deployment across OEM platforms and reducing engineering costs,” said Jordan Greene, Co-founder, GM of Automotive, VP of Corporate Development, at AEye. “Moving AEye sensor hardware from one location on a vehicle to another does not require a mechanical adaptation, as the sensor’s performance parameter can be configured by a simple software operation. This provides our go-to-market partners like Continental the ultimate flexibility in design without compromising top-end performance in the process.”

As automakers shift towards software-driven business models, they are looking to software-defined hardware to absorb new technological advancements and deploy new innovative services. AEye says it is the only company with an adaptive sensor platform that can be configured via software for different vehicle placements, use cases, and markets to help OEMs realize their vision of smart assets and software-definable vehicles.

Unlike traditional sensing systems that passively collect data, AEye says its adaptive lidar scans the entire scene while intelligently focusing on what matters to enable safer, smarter, and faster decisions in complex scenarios. As a result, its lidar uniquely enables higher levels of autonomous functionality—SAE Levels 2 through 5—at the optimal performance, power, and price.

AEye was founded in 2013 by Greene and CTO Luis Dussan, the latter previously a leading technologist at Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman responsible for designing mission-critical targeting systems for fighter jets. Dussan realized that a self-driving car faces a similar challenge; it must be able to see, classify, and respond to an object—whether it’s a parked car or a child crossing the street—in real-time and before it’s too late. He helped build the AEye team of scientists and electro-optics engineers from NASA, Lockheed, Northrop, the U.S. Air Force, and DARPA to create a high-performance sensing and perception system to ensure the highest levels of safety for autonomous driving.

The company is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and backed by investors including Kleiner Perkins, Taiwania Capital, GM Ventures, Continental AG, Hella Ventures, LG Electronics, Subaru-SBI, Pegasus Ventures (Aisin), Intel Capital, SK Hynix, and Airbus Ventures. In 2021, it became a publicly traded company listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange via a business combination agreement with CF Finance Acquisition Corp. III, a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald.

AEye says it is the first and only lidar company to validate its sensor’s performance through a leading third-party testing service.

In February 2021, the active safety and automated vehicle technology experts at VSI Labs oversaw the performance testing of AEye’s lidar system. Based on its findings, VSI Labs determined that AEye’s lidar system achieved a range of more than four times, a resolution of more than five times, and scan rates of over ten times greater than LiDAR devices currently on the market. This data can be used by the automated vehicle to see further, gain more accurate information, and make decisions about its trajectory at a greater distance or at a higher velocity.

AEye’s software-defined lidar solutions are targeted not only at advanced driver assistance and vehicle autonomy but also smart infrastructure, logistics, and off-highway applications. In July 2021, AEye announced that it had accelerated the rollout of its business model across automotive, industrial, and mobility markets.

In automotive, Continental announced it has integrated AEye’s long-range LiDAR technology into its full-stack automated driving platform and is industrializing the technology for a planned start of volume production in 2024. Separately, AEye announced that it was working with Sanmina to begin production of AEye’s 4Sight M LiDAR sensor for industrial and mobility markets late last year.

Continental plans to sell AEye technology as both a standalone product and as a fully integrated component of its ADAS and AD systems for OEMs in both automotive and commercial trucking markets. The Tier 1 supplier has begun producing the first samples of the new long-range LiDAR at its Ingolstadt plant. It started series production line build-up preparations to ensure a smooth and timely transition from sample to series production in 2024.

Sanmina will manufacture AEye’s 4Sight M sensor to the specifications required by AEye’s system integrator customers serving industrial and mobility markets. The transfer from AEye’s pilot line in Dublin, CA, to Sanmina’s commercial production lines is taking place as the company prepares for volume production. The transfer includes proprietary optical alignment and calibration technology that enables best-in-class range accuracy.

“We’re proud to provide our deep design and process development expertise and state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities to accelerate series production of AEye’s next-generation systems,” said Mike Landy, President and COO of Integrated Manufacturing Solutions at Sanmina.

In industrial markets, the company works with manufacturers and system integrators that can configure AEye’s platform through software to meet the specific needs of their end customers in mobility, trucking, delivery, rail, ITS/smart cities, security, construction, mining, defense, and aerospace. All manufacturers leverage the same modular system components manufactured by AEye’s Tier 2 suppliers. This “capital-light” approach allows for innovation, reliability, and lower unit costs.