California Startup Touts Next-Gen Lidar Tech

Luminar Technologies, a Silicon Valley startup company, says it has developed a next-generation lidar sensor that can significantly improve the performance of self-driving cars.

Luminar claims its technology, which includes patented hardware and software, will provide 50 times the resolution and 10 times the range of current lidar systems. The 1,550-nanometer wavelength system can identify dark objects with 10% reflectivity clearly from 200 meters away, thereby providing vehicles more time to take corrective action, according to company officials.

Photonics experts Austin Russell and Jason Eichenholz founded Luminar in 2012 when Russell was still a teenager. The pair, which raised $36 million in initial funding, say four unnamed carmakers and tech companies are testing their technology. They aim to open a manufacturing plant in Orlando, Fla.