Israeli startup Innoviz Technologies, which develops LiDAR software and sensors for autonomous vehicles, announced the launch of its Next-Gen LiDAR sensors - the InnovizTwo. The new fully-featured solution provides automotive-grade imaging capabilities for all levels of autonomous driving and coming in at a significantly lower cost.
L2 - partial automation/L3- high automation/L4- fully automated
Despite the autonomous future charging towards our human supervision reality, the realization of one day not sitting in endless traffic jams and shifting gears is still a few years away. Even today, the most advanced L2 platforms (partially supervised by humans) still aren’t up to standards, and face an abundance of technical limitations, resulting in safety issues. Add to the fact that vehicle manufacturers these days spend countless manhours and years of engineering in order to validate and take full liability prior to the launch of an L3 car (functions autonomously with minimal human supervision).
According to Innoviz, its LiDAR technology enables manufacturers to make the leap and build autonomous vehicles that can effectively collect roadway data and release more advanced functions via over-the-air updates. This coincides with the increase in autonomous regulatory demands that become more strict by the day. To this end, manufacturers are forced to produce both hardware and software solutions to meet the L3 and L4 (totally autonomous vehicle) standards.
This is exactly where the Israeli LiDAR innovator comes into play with its Next-Gen device. Nearly three years after partnering with automotive giant BMW (through Magna as the Tier-1 supplier), which integrated the InnovizOne in its autonomous fleet plans, Innoviz launches InnovizTwo, a major cost reduction design of over 70% compared to InnovizOne, including significant performance improvement.
"We know how difficult it is to introduce a fully validated L3 platform to the market," explains CEO Omer Keilaf, who co-founded the company in 2016 with CBO Oren Rosenzweig, Chief R&D officer Oren Buskila, and Amit Steinberg. "Taking such a big step is possible by only a few car manufacturers. We are excited to introduce our next-generation product, InnovizTwo, which solves a significant bottleneck in the industry. InnovizTwo will allow more car makers to offer safe L2+ while paving the path to full L3 automation in the most efficient and safe way, eventually enabling the autonomous revolution."
Including Innoviz's high-performance LiDAR and its advanced Perception Software in L2+ platforms will not only bring safer mobility to all, but they will also allow the car manufacturers, Tier-1s and Innoviz to collect data through their customer base. While L2+ drivers are still liable for the car drive, new features will continue to be validated, and, later, when safety is statistically proven, the software will be upgraded to full L3 without any hardware change.
Mr. Alejandro Vukotich, former Senior VP of Automated Driving and Driver Assistance Systems at Audi and BMW explains: "Aside from all the technical challenges, it is key to achieve a price point that enables the industry to introduce a commercially viable technology in the market as a L2 system, and then to incrementally validate and verify the L3 in the field before it gets released as a software update. The InnovizTwo is definitely an important and huge milestone in this direction."
