The technical collaboration will combine Baraja's next-generation Spectrum HD25 with TIER IV's innovative sensor fusion solution
TOKYO, Jan. 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TIER IV, an open-source autonomous driving leader, is expanding upon its work with Baraja, creator of the breakthrough Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology, by signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to jointly validate, develop and optimize their respective autonomous driving solutions.
Following a successful research and development project between the companies, originally announced in January 2022, this technical collaboration intends to integrate Baraja's next-generation, high-performing LiDAR with TIER IV's HDR cameras and sensor fusion software, which utilizes point cloud perception. This advanced combination will offer customers an industry-leading autonomous vehicle solution with planned availability in 2025.
"We are pleased to further strengthen our partnership with TIER IV to create this next-generation offering that will provide reliable long-range detection and object classification through enhanced perception ability," said Joseph Notaro, Chief Commercial Officer at Baraja. "This strategic collaboration between Baraja and TIER IV is a critical step toward enabling future levels of autonomy for the industry."
Baraja's revolutionary LiDAR, the Spectrum HD25, is a key ingredient to the MOU. The partnership will boost the capabilities of both company's technologies, delivering unique benefits to the automotive industry, including:
- Greatly enhanced localization and scene comprehension
- Optimized use of Baraja's LiDAR in different environments (e.g. rain, fog, etc.),
- The use of Doppler to solve critical edge cases
- Dependable long-range detection and more
Ultimately, the resulting solution will provide automotive perception algorithms with a clear and accurate representation of the physical world to help enable autonomous vehicles to make swift, accurate decisions based on the immediate situation.
Spectrum HD25 was created using Baraja's robust and proprietary Spectrum-Scan™ solid-state scanning platform and is a significant leap forward in LiDAR technology. Designed to completely reimagine how cars see the world around them, this LiDAR system is the first in the world to combine per-point Doppler capability at the hardware level with a tunable wavelength laser and Random Modulation Continuous Wave (RMCW) ranging method. Its unique makeup enables the optimal resolution and range required for safe deployment of autonomous functions and allows it to deliver unmatched accuracy and performance.
TIER IV is developing sensor fusion and perception algorithms for the next generation of autonomous vehicles, built on the open-source platform Autoware. Research and development into new sensing methods and strategies is integral to expanding operational design domains through reference designs, and will contribute to growing the Autoware ecosystem. Accelerated development of high performance perception systems will be made available to all Autoware users by incorporating cutting-edge technology such as Baraja's Spectrum Scan LiDAR into TIER IV's Pilot.Auto and Edge Perception Development Kit.
"We have made a number of tangible and impactful achievements through the collaborations with Baraja. TIER IV aspires to accelerate its business on the Autonomous Driving Development Kit (ADK) and passionately contribute to the Autoware community by providing competitive reference designs and solutions." said Shinpei Kato, Founder and CTO of TIER IV, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Autoware Foundation.
To learn more about Spectrum-ScanTM, as well as TIER IV's sensor fusion work and HDR cameras, visit TIER IV's Booth 6317 in Tech East, located within the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, Jan. 5-8, 2023.
About Baraja
Baraja is building the future of LiDAR to enable the autonomous future. With its revolutionary Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology, Baraja gives leading automotive companies a solid state system in the fast axis that sets a new benchmark in precision and reliability.
Baraja was founded in 2016 by telecommunications engineers Federico Collarte and Cibby Pulikkaseril, who discovered a way to use the industry's proven optical fiber + photonics technology to solve the problems faced by legacy LiDAR. Baraja is backed by Sequoia, Blackbird Ventures, Hitachi Construction Machinery and Main Sequence Ventures. Learn more at https://www.baraja.com.
About Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR
Baraja's revolutionary Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR completely rethinks the way autonomous vehicles see the world around them. Built on proven optical and photonics technologies from the telecommunications industry, Spectrum-Scan™ precisely steers infrared lasers through prism-like optics in the sensor, rapidly switching the laser's wavelength to send each color of light in a different direction — the same way optic fiber technology works. The resulting pointclouds are extremely high-resolution and immune to interference from other light sources and LiDAR systems. Baraja Spectrum-Scan™ operates on the 1550 nm infrared spectrum, making it safe for human eyes, and creates crystal-clear pointclouds with a high-resolution 2000-channel vertical axis and responsive focus to effectively detect objects at ranges of more than 250 meters.
About TIER IV
TIER IV is the creator of Autoware, the world's first open-source software for autonomous driving, and provides full-stack solutions for the commercialization of intelligent vehicles based on the Autoware-defined Autonomous Driving Kit (ADK), which runs on multiple platforms. Autoware is currently used by hundreds of companies globally, with field operation tests run in about 20 countries and implemented with 30 different types of vehicles.
As a founding member of the Autoware Foundation, TIER IV is dedicated to providing open access to autonomous driving technology so that everyone, from individuals to organizations, can participate in and contribute to a sustainable ecosystem of intelligent vehicles and autonomous driving technology for the benefit of society. Learn more at https://tier4.jp/en/ and follow us @tier_iv_japan.
SOURCE Tier IV, Inc.
