Audi collaborates with lidar maker Luminar on autonomous driving

Audi subsidiary AID, or Autonomous Intelligent Driving, will collaborate with the American lidar maker Luminar. With this partnership, Audi aims to achieve level 4 automation of its cars by 2021, i.e. fully autonomous driving in most circumstances.

AID Cto Alexandre Haag explains in the announcement that perception by the car is ‘the biggest hurdle for autonomous driving. That’s why we hire Luminar, which makes the most powerful lidar sensors when it comes to range and density.” Lidar works with countless laser pulses, which are emitted and captured by the car. Its data is used, in a similar way to radar, to estimate distance and motion.

To The Verge, Haag states that the very first application of these cars will be an autonomous taxi, as we now also see on a small scale at Waymo, for example. Then that needs to be extended to trucks, buses, delivery vans and so on.

Level 4 autonomy means that the car steers, accelerates, brakes and monitors the environment without the driver having to step in at any time; there doesn’t even have to be a driver. This should be possible in most common situations, such as in the city and on the highway. Level 5 autonomy means that the car can in principle always perform these operations.

AID is an Audi subsidiary and Audi is again a subsidiary of the Volkswagen group, which includes Volkswagen itself, Seat, Ŝkoda, Porsche and more. In 2017, Volkswagen announced that by the end of 2022 it will have invested more than 34 billion euros in, among other things, electric and autonomous driving.

Ford also wants to bring the first almost fully self-driving car on the market in 2021. General Motors is even aiming for 2019 with its level 4 autonomous Cruise car. Toyota is teaming up with Uber to start a pilot program for self-driving vehicles in 2021. Uber also works with Volvo, Daimler and Ford. The combination of Volkswagen and MobileEye will start a self-driving taxi service in Israel in 2019.