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Luminar introduces long-range lidar for trucks

Luminar and Plus are working together on the further development of highly automated driving and safety systems for commercial vehicle manufacturers. The goal is a lidar- and AI-based driving assistance software.

Truck with long-range lidar and installed PlusDrive solution. (Photo: Plus)
Truck with long-range lidar and installed PlusDrive solution. (Photo: Plus)
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von Anna Barbara Brüggmann

The automotive technology manufacturer Luminar and Plus, a global provider of solutions for highly automated and fully autonomous driving, have announced a cooperation: The agreement stipulates that Luminar will be the exclusive provider of medium- to long-range lidar systems for PlusDrive, Plus's factory-installed assisted driving system.

At the same time, Plus will become the exclusive third-party provider of AI-based driver assistance software for Luminar's solution for commercial vehicle OEMs.

"The truck sector is a growing key market for Luminar. The same products and technologies that we have successfully used in our passenger car programs are now being applied in commercial vehicles," said Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell.

According to Russell, Plus is seen as a new strategic partner "to enable safety and autonomy for serial production commercial vehicles on an even greater scale." Luminar's Iris Lidar sensor solution provides high-performance long-range environmental perception and can see up to 600 meters ahead. This corresponds to a visibility range of up to 20 seconds at highway speeds, and fully loaded trucks should be able to come to a stop without issue if needed, according to the company.

This is expected to represent a gradual improvement in ADAS systems functionality and also lay the groundwork for fully autonomous driving.

"With Luminar, PlusDrive achieves new benchmarks in perception at greater distances as well as at highway speeds. This enables the scalable commercialization of driver-in technology today and accelerates our customers' path to full autonomy," said David Liu, CEO and co-founder of Plus, with conviction.

The PlusDrive solution is already available and is being used by some fleets for freight delivery. Components such as lidar, radar, and specialized cameras are used "to see 360 degrees around the vehicle and hundreds of meters ahead," according to the manufacturers.

An AI-based software processes the data and is designed to predict the behavior of surrounding vehicles and safely maneuver the vehicle.

It automatically regulates stop-and-go traffic, lane changes, lane merging, approaching oversized vehicles, and maintaining the center of the lane—all while having an alert and vigilant driver, Plus emphasizes. New driving functions would be updated via software updates.

According to their own statements, the cooperation partners also intend to collaborate on Luminar's insurance program for commercial vehicles, high-resolution mapping, and the integration of sensors for truck traffic called Blade.

Translated automatically from German.
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