US robotic perception company AEye has shown its Idar lidar system is able to detect and track a truck at 1km distance.
The firm also announced $40 million in series B funding, led by Taiwania Capital.
AEye’s standard Idar sensor was tested on an airport runway in Byron, California. To test range, a standard 20-foot moving truck was tracked and continuously scanned down the length of the 914-metre runway.
The performance tests were monitored and validated by VSI Labs, US automated vehicle technology advisors.
AEye says the Idar system was able to detect, and track the movements of the vehicle as well as detect runway signs and markers en route. The AEye sensor vehicle was then taken off the runway to extend the available test range to over 1km, where Idar continued to track the truck without difficulty.
Sara Sargent, senior engineer at VSI Labs, said: ‘We were also able to verify that AEye’s Idar system achieves scan rates of 100Hz and that the fusion of the camera and lidar in the Idar sensor produces accurate true colour real-time point clouds in the form of Dynamic Vixels. This is an outstanding achievement that demonstrates the true potential of perception systems to reliably and accurately detect and track objects at great range.’
AEye’s Idar is an intelligent artificial perception system that physically fuses an agile, solid-state lidar with a high resolution camera to create a data type AEye is calling Dynamic Vixels. These Dynamic Vixels are the result of real-time integration of Idar lidar and a low-light camera in the Idar sensor, not post fusion of a separate camera and lidar system after the scan.
