Intel’s self-driving car unit Mobileye plans to step up use of its own radar tech by 2025
- Mobileye currently uses a camera-based system that helps cars with adaptive cruise control and lane change assistance
- For more advanced systems, the company plans to add both radar sensors and lidar
Mobileye has taken a different strategy from many of its self-driving car competitors, with a current camera-based system that helps cars with adaptive cruise control and lane change assistance. Those systems are on the road today and are gathering data to help Mobileye map the roads in new cities.
For more advanced systems, the company plans to add both radar sensors, which use radio waves to detect distance from objects, and lidar, a laser-based system that helps self-driving vehicles gain a three-dimensional view of the road. For a planned fleet of so-called robotaxis, which are commercial vehicles meant to ferry around passengers, the company is tapping sensors from Luminar Technologies.
In a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show, chief executive Amnon Shashua said on Tuesday that Mobileye’s robotaxis will use multiple Luminar units to gain 360-degree lidar, radar and camera coverage all around the vehicle. The robotaxis rolling out in at least eight cities starting in 2022 will each have four Luminar units, Shashua said in a subsequent question and answer session.
But Mobileye is also developing its own lidar sensor that it plans to start using in 2025 for cars aimed at consumers.