Military technology to improve ADAS
TriEye has developed a Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) camera that will allow Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles to achieve flawless vision capabilities under common adverse weather and low-light conditions such as fog, dust or night-time. In the defence and aerospace industry, SWIR cameras have been used for to “see” where standard cameras fail. However, these cameras so far have been too expensive for mass-market applications.
This is where TriEye comes in. The startup’s product is based on nanophotonics research at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, led by TriEye’s CTO Uriel Levy. The company’s research results enable fabrication of CMOS-based SWIR sensors at scale. Similar to a common digital camera, TriEye’s SWIR technology is CMOS-based, enabling the scalable mass-production of SWIR sensors and reducing the cost by a factor of 1,000 compared to current InGaAs-based technology used in expensive defense systems, the company claims. As a result, it is possible to produce an affordable HD SWIR camera in a miniaturized form, supporting easy in-vehicle mounting behind the car’s windshield.
Other approaches to solve the low visibility challenge have not been successful. Even when combining several sensing solutions such as radar, lidar and a camera, it is difficult, if not impossible to accurately detect and identify objects such as a cyclist at night under common adverse conditions. This limitation is impeding the wide-scale deployment and adoption of ADAS and autonomous vehicles. The defense and aerospace industries have already solved the low visibility challenge by using InGaAs-based SWIR cameras. However, up until now, these cameras have been too expensive for mass-market applications.
Infrared cameras, however, need an infrared light source. The technology for this light source is kept confidential. “We disclose this information only to (automotive) OEMs and tier ones”, the startup explained upon request by eeNews Europe. Likewise, TriEye does not provide information as to when the engineering community can expect first series vehicles with the SWIR camera built in. Initial samples, however, are expected to enter the market in 2020, they said.
Besides Intel, further investors include Marius Nacht, co-founder of Check Point Software Technologies, and TriEye’s existing investor Grove Ventures, headed by TriEye chairman Dov Moran, the inventor of the USB flash drive and co-founder of M-Systems. Since inception, TriEye has raised over $20M, including a seed investment of $3M led by Grove Ventures in November 2017.
More information: https://trieye.tech/
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