Aeva and ZF plan to bring Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) LiDAR to the automotive market.
The partnership strengthens the parties’ collaboration by leveraging Aeva’s expertise in FMCW LiDAR and perception technology together with ZF’s expertise as an automotive supplier, and autonomous systems provider.
Aeva claims its FMCW technology is designed to meet the challenging performance and the manufacturability requirements for adoption of LiDAR in autonomous vehicles.
The features of FMCW Lidar are as follows:
¤ Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) LiDAR uses a continuous laser beam to measure the change in frequency of the waveform as it reflects off of an object.
¤ It integrates all the key elements of a LiDAR sensor into a miniaturized photonics chip.
¤ The 4D LiDAR-on-chip significantly reduces the size and power of the device by orders of magnitude.
¤ It is also free of interference from other sensors or sunlight and it operates at only fractions of the optical power typically required to achieve long range performance.
¤ It can achieve full range performance of over 300m for low reflective objects and has the ability to measure instant velocity for every point.
¤ It also costs less in contrast to the several tens of thousands of dollars for today’s LiDAR sensors.
The final system is targeted as a key solution for autonomous driving applications including established truck and OEM manufacturers as well as leading mobility as a service customers.
