Seeing 激光雷达 technology in a new light

在美光创投, 我们一直在寻找在各种问题领域和应用中真正创新地应用人工智能(AI)和机器学习(ML)的公司. The sensor stack in industrial and automotive sectors is one of the areas we are constantly monitoring, and we have been specifically on the lookout for a low-cost, software defined 3D sensing solution.

空间意识 & 三维传感

空间和环境意识是阻碍自动驾驶在驾驶和工厂等领域广泛采用的关键瓶颈. T在这里 are various technologies used in traditional sensing systems: cameras, 超声波, 雷达, 和激光雷达, but all have in在这里nt limitations. Camera based sensors do well during the day, but they do not perform well at night because cameras need sufficient light for object detection. 相反, 在黑暗环境中，雷达传感器能够比照相机更好地感知物体的形状，但通常在分辨率上是有限的. 迄今为止，光探测和测距(激光雷达)技术在解决这些限制方面表现良好，在黑暗环境中具有更好的物体探测和3D传感性能，但该技术在雨天或雾天的图像质量和分辨率方面仍然受到限制.

出于这个原因, 几家自动驾驶汽车(AV)制造商指出，传感器融合是解决每个传感器固有局限性的解决方案:采用不同的技术，通过超声波雷达的组合，构建车辆周围的复合视图, 激光雷达, 和照相机. 这种多种传感器技术的融合有助于消除任何传感器类型的弱点，并被证明是最好的前进方向. 在过去的十年里，激光雷达传感器的投资激增，风险投资约为60亿美元(来源:Pichbook)，甚至产生了8个(Luminar), 威力登, Aeva, 下台, AEye, Quanergy系统, Cepton技术, and Innoviz Technologies) publicly traded 激光雷达 companies in the 2020/21 SPAC boom. 然而, 由于激光雷达的可靠性有限，它很难成为一种实用的技术，成为车辆传感器融合组合的一部分, high cost and limited accuracy and resolution.

The time is right for a new approach. 而现有的激光雷达厂商则专注于从光源到数据转换和后处理的硬件微调，以实现规模, Red Leader is using its novel software defined approach that offers increased flexibility and offers:

• 在专用的片上系统(SoC)中添加复杂和专有软件算法的能力-在不影响功耗要求的情况下驱动更高的分辨率
• A hardware agnostic solution that can integrate across 激光雷达 sensors (mechanical vs solid state, wavelength of the source laser 905nm vs 1550nm and now pulsed vs. 连贯)

A Leap Forward with Red Leader

As you know when you go to the dentist, 和 dentist shows you the x-ray films of your teeth, 和y might indicate a certain area and tell you, "这里有个洞". But all that is visible to you is a blurry stain.

That’s similar to what untrained people see when analyzing the data of a traditional 激光雷达. Just as it would be more helpful to see a dental x-ray 清晰的ly, it would also be more helpful to see the image produced by 激光雷达 more 清晰的ly.

That is what happens with Red Leader technology.

在以硬件为中心的激光雷达行业，Red Leader独特的基于软件的3D传感方法提供了性能增强，并通过开放许可模式解锁了制造商之间的互操作性. 该公司开发了一种专有的人工智能算法和计算数字信号处理(DSP)软件解决方案，使光波处理能够在3D成像中解锁可扩展性. Unlike traditional 激光雷达s that are unresponsive to scenes and use a rudimentary single beam for signal generation, Red Leader传输数据丰富的定制波形，包含多个编码波束，无需等待返回信号，并通过解码来自CDMA等传入信号的反射波束来计算距离. By leveraging signal processing techniques to modulate laser signals across schemes — direct pulsed time-of-flight (ToF), 间接连续ToF, 和相干全调制连续波(FMCW) - Red Leader能够在单个接收器系统中传输多个激光束，与当前的激光雷达相比，分辨率提高了100倍.

Red Leader achieves spatial awareness by combining high resolution (20M points/sec compared to 1M points/sec) sensing with edge compute (<5ms latency for automation loops) and is environmentally robust as its 3D sensor extends 激光雷达 capabilities to support all weather and lighting environments by unlocking 雷达-like ranges and camera-like resolutions not feasible today. 在下图中，我们看到一个行业标准的16通道激光雷达系统无法生成清晰的点云(通过激光雷达生成的图像)，但当配备了Red Leader的3D传感软件时, the same 激光雷达 system can 清晰的ly see objects and humans without compromising on range or cost. 随着越来越多的机器配备激光雷达传感器，传统的激光雷达也容易因串扰(无数不同信号产生的噪声)而降低范围和分辨率, but Red Leader’s 3D sensing solution even resolves this problem since every channel in its transmit signal beam is unique.

Since their last financing round co-led by 微米 合资企业, Jake Hillard and Rebecca Wong, the co-founders of Red Leader, 在吸引行业领导者的顶尖人才方面做得很好，并吸引了著名的投资者和行业顾问来帮助扩展他们新颖的全栈3D传感硬件软件解决方案. By investing in Red Leader at the Series A stage, 美光不仅支持Red Leader优化其边缘计算，还将美光定位为更广泛工业中新兴但庞大且具有战略意义的3D传感市场的领先参与者, automotive and consumer electronics 行业.

To learn more about Red Leader check out what their CEO had to say at 2022年台北国际电脑展 和 红色领袖网站
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To learn more about 微米 合资企业 and our portfolio companies visit 在这里
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Taking 激光雷达 to Multiple 市场 Segments

Red Leader目前将自动移动机器人(amr)和自动导引车(agv)作为其在机器人市场的滩头阵地，通过利用学习和网络效应，推动采用并实现规模经济，扩展到更广泛的高性能自动驾驶汽车和大规模消费电子沙巴体育结算平台(AR/VR头戴式设备), drones and smartphones) markets. 通过合并基于激活的业务模型，联合开发制造商(jdm)或合同制造商(CMs)为大规模生产许可开放硬件参考设计, the 公司 is unlocking a scale motion currently infeasible by hardware focused 激光雷达 manufacturers.

Since their last financing round co-led by 微米 合资企业, Jake Hillard and Rebecca Wong, the co-founders of Red Leader, 在吸引行业领导者的顶尖人才方面做得很好，并吸引了著名的投资者和行业顾问来帮助扩展他们新颖的全栈3D传感硬件软件解决方案. By investing in Red Leader at the Series A stage, 美光不仅支持Red Leader优化其边缘计算，还将美光定位为更广泛工业中新兴但庞大且具有战略意义的3D传感市场的领先参与者, automotive and consumer electronics 行业.

To learn more about Red Leader check out what their CEO had to say at 2022年台北国际电脑展 和 红色领袖网站

To learn more about 微米 合资企业 and our portfolio companies visit 在这里