With this week's Frankfurt International Motor Show emphasizing smart car and future transport technologies, Israeli startup AdaSky has come out of stealth and unveiled a Far Infrared (FIR) perception solution designed for the car industry. The Yokneam-based company's solution, initially developed for the military, combines an FIR thermal camera with advanced computer vision algorithms to let autonomous vehicles see and understand the road and their surroundings in any conditions.
AdaSky's first product, Viper, comprises a high-performing thermal camera and state-of-the-art machine vision algorithms, together in one complete solution, that can be added to any autonomous vehicle to enable it to see better and analyze its surroundings. Viper passively collects FIR signals through detection of thermal energy radiated from objects and their body heat. AdaSky's algorithms process the signals collected by the camera to provide accurate object detection and scene analysis, giving the vehicle the ability to precisely detect pedestrians at a few hundreds of meters, allowing more distance in which to react to driving decisions.
Viper is a high-resolution, thermal camera for autonomous vehicles with minimal size, weight and power consumption and no moving parts - at a price suited for mass market. Viper generates a new layer of information, originated from a different band of the electromagnetic spectrum, significantly increasing performance for classification, identification, and detection of objects and of vehicle surroundings, both near and far range.
AdaSky founder, president and CEO Avi Katz said, "We saw a powerful opportunity in the market. The most basic need for an autonomous vehicle is to be able to see and interpret what is happening around it, regardless of road conditions. Existing sensors and cameras available today can't meet this need on their own. To address this, we turned to FIR technology, which has been proven in other vertical industries and is mature enough to scale. We adapted the technology for the automotive industry and have been able to create a solution that performs at its best in use cases where other sensors fail."
Founded in January 2016, AdaSky recently began delivering Viper prototypes for evaluation to tier-one suppliers and automotive OEMs.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 12, 2017
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