By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Sense Photonics has
developed new detection technology that hits a key milestone
required for self-driving cars, the laser sensor company said on
Friday.
The company led by automotive industry veteran and former
Google executive Shauna McIntyre is developing a lidar sensor
that uses laser light to help autonomous vehicles gain a
three-dimensional view of the road.
Sense told Reuters its new technology can sense objects from
200 meters, or about 650 feet.
Industry analysts believe that lidar could become a key
component of advanced vehicles in coming years as a complement
to cameras and radar-based sensors.
The 200 meter range is a benchmark many lidar businesses
have set for highway driving as they seek tie-ups with
automotive manufacturers.
At least five lidar companies, including Velodyne Lidar
and Luminar Technologies, have either become
publicly listed since last year or are in the process of doing
so, all through reverse mergers with publicly listed blank check
firms.
But Sense, which was founded in 2016 and has raised $40
million from Samsung Ventures and Shell Ventures
, has kept a lower profile.
The company hired McIntyre as chief executive last year. She
had begun her career in a Ford factory, also worked for
Honeywell International's turbocharger business and
oversaw Alphabet Inc's Google Maps automotive
programs.
McIntyre said Sense's technology is designed to use no
moving parts, eliminating the need for precise alignment of
sensors' laser emitters and detectors, which is proprietary to
the company and uses what is called a single-photon avalanche
diode.
Sense's target price for the new sensors will be "in the
hundreds of dollars, not thousands, for high-volume automotive
applications", she told Reuters.
"We are talking to automakers now for 2024 start of
production," she said, declining to name the company's partners.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco
Editing by David Goodman)
