LiDAR Manufacturers Updates: Cepton and AEye Announce New Partnerships; Quanergy Achieves Automotive Standards

To further speed up autonomous driving technology development, LiDAR producers are strengthening their cooperation with different strategic partners. Cepton announced partnership with Dataspeed, an autonomous vehicle solution provider while Aeye reported an investment from Japan-based component maker Aisin. Meanwhile, Quanergy revealed that it has met automotive requirement.

3D LiDAR solutions developer Cepton Technologies announced that it has partneredp with autonomous vehicle solution specialist Dataspeed. Through the partnership, Dataspeed’s customers will have access to Cepton LiDAR technology for the development and deployment of autonomous applications.

(Image: Cepton)

Built on the company’s patented Micro Motion Technology (MMTTM) platform, Cepton’s LiDAR delivers unrivaled performance and resolution at a low cost. Cepton also recently unveiled its Vista-EdgeTM LiDAR Evaluation Kit, a plug-and-play device with all necessary software and tools pre-installed to view and analyze the LiDAR’s 3D point cloud of data.

At the same time, perception system developer AEye reported that Aisin, a Japanese components and systems manufacturer, has invested in the company through their corporate venture capital fund managed by Pegasus Tech Ventures. Since Aisin is the sixth largest Tier 1 OEM parts supplier globally, its investment would pave the way for collaboration and expansion for AEye to meet the demands of OEMs deploying ADAS and mobility solutions.

Anis Uzzaman, General Partner & CEO at Pegasus Tech Ventures, said, “AEye’s AI-based perception solution, iDAR, is a superior technology, rendering the other LiDAR approaches obsolete and creating what we believe is a new standard for ADAS and autonomous solutions in the Japanese market and beyond.”

AEye’s iDAR combines software extensibility, artificial intelligence and smart, agile sensors to deliver intelligent data collection at the sensor level. The company will launch its iDAR products in the second half of 2019.

Another LiDAR sensors manufacturer Quanergy Systems, announced that it has reached compliance with the automotive standard IATF 16949:2016 and the required automotive core tools and product standards. With this compliance, Quanergy has shown its readiness to produce solid-state LiDAR sensors for use in a wide range of automotive applications.

The IATF 16949:2016 compliance assesses quality starting at the conception of product design to its application, requiring a far more stringent and comprehensive assessment than other certification standards.

Quanergy also performs reliability verification of its solid-state LiDAR sensors using the AEC (Automotive Electronics Council) Q100 family of standards. Additionally, Quanergy ensures the conformance of its key automotive suppliers to IATF 16949.

Quanergy earned this compliance after three rounds of third-party certification audits by a leading European certification body, Det Norske Veritas Germanischer Lloyd (DNVGL). This comes after only nine months of internal implementation activities, which is half the time it typically takes an organization to achieve this milestone.