Innovusion and driveblocks Offer Pre-integrated LiDAR Perception Solution to Accelerate Commercial Vehicle Automation

September 21, 2023, Eschborn / Munich, GER; Sunnyvale, CA – Innovusion, a global frontrunner in high precision and resolution LiDAR sensor technology, and driveblocks, a pioneer in AI-based perception and sensor-fusion for mapless autonomous driving, have joined forces. The objective: To speed up commercial vehicle automation by providing a robust and integrated solution designed for a diverse range of environments, including agriculture, container yards, and highways.

"In the rapidly evolving field of vehicle automation, providing safe, reliable, and flexible solutions that are available right away is paramount," said Conrad-Christian Kimmle, Managing Director of Innovusion Europe GmbH. "With our alliance with driveblocks, we are geared to rise to these challenges, developing solutions that are effective across varied scenarios and adaptable to different architectures."

Results Proven in Challenging On-Road Test

The solution has been successfully integrated into a demonstrator vehicle in collaboration with commercial vehicle retrofitting expert, pepper motion. Following rigorous on-road testing, including a continuous test run from Munich to Bozen on European highways, it proved to be highly reliable and ready for automotive applications. "The combination of innovative LIDAR technology by Innovusion and advanced perception and sensor-fusion software from driveblocks will enable several important assistance and automation features for commercial vehicles," said Dr. Stephan Matz, Managing Director at driveblocks. "We have chosen one of the most challenging routes amongst the Alps for our benchmarks to verify the capabilities of the solution. It has demonstrated its performance in varying lighting conditions, tunnels, and on the Brenner Pass with its steep inclination profile. The Innovusion LIDAR and our perception algorithms have shown consistent performance amongst these challenging scenarios. This is proving the advantages LIDAR sensors bring for Level 4 autonomy."

Innovusion’s LiDAR has been found to reliably detect other traffic participants like trucks and passenger cars for ranges of up to 300m. This was enabled by the dynamic adjustment capabilities for the high-fidelity region of interest provided by the Innovusion Falcon. Smaller objects are detected for up to 150m. The figures could be confirmed in low-light conditions such as tunnels.

As Innovusion and driveblocks move forward, they aim to expand this successful collaboration, with a focus on increasing the capabilities of the perception platform as well as moving towards commercial deployment of the solution for vehicle automation in the near future.

Encounter Innovusion at Auto.AI 2023

Innovusion showcases the Falcon LiDAR at Auto.AI 2023 in Berlin from September 24 to 26, 2023. Attendees are cordially invited to explore our exhibition at booth 14.

About Innovusion 

Innovusion is a leading global provider of image-grade LiDAR sensors that power a safer, smarter, and more mobile world across the automotive, intelligent transportation, rail and industrial automation industries. With R&D teams and automotive-grade manufacturing bases in both the USA and China, Innovusion’s portfolio of dynamic LiDAR solutions help transform communities with safer mobility in mind, deliver better autonomous driving experiences, and enable more accurate and efficient smart city development. Automotive-grade product, Falcon, has been a standard configuration of the Aquila system for NIO ET7, ES7, and ET5 since  2022 and with 100,000+ units currently in use, continues to be mass produced as of today. 

For more information, please visit www.innovusion.com 

 About driveblocks

driveblocks, an autonomous driving technology provider based in Munich, offers the Mapless Autonomy Platform for automated and autonomous driving in the commercial vehicle sector. The software targets several applications, such as agriculture, mining, container terminals, and highway trucking.

The core technology is a combination of transformer neural networks and geometrically interpretable sensor-fusion to create a local environment model based on sensor data. In contrast to existing technologies relying on so-called high-definition maps, this eliminates the need for costly pre-mapping and constant updating of these maps in the cloud. The offering is complemented by other compatible algorithms, enabling customers to automate their vehicles faster and more cost-efficiently.

The company was founded in 2021 and is backed by automotive and mobility focused investor rethink Ventures, Bayern Kapital, and Friedrich & Wagner Holding. The founding team looks back on many years of experience in the research and development of algorithms for automated driving and has already successfully participated in several research competitions, including the Indy Autonomous Challenge, in the USA.

For more information, please visit : https://www.driveblocks.ai