Hella seeks further AEye collaboration

Lighting and electronic specialists, Hella is seeking to expand its collaboration for sensing and perception solutions for ADAS and automated driving with AEye.

AEye is an artificial perception pioneer and creator of iDAR, a perception system that acts as the eyes and visual cortex of autonomous vehicles. Since its demonstration of its solid-state LiDAR scanner in 2013, AEye has pioneered breakthroughs in intelligent sensing.

“Hella is an ideal strategic partner for AEye as we look to ramp production capabilities to meet the demand of our OEM partners,” said Blair LaCorte, President of AEye. “Hella has an excellent track record working with automotive OEMs, and I anticipate great synergies as we look to roll out next generation perception capabilities that meet their needs both today, and in the future.”

Frank Petznick, responsible for Automated Driving at Hella says: “Hella is actively promoting the trend towards AD. The collaboration with AEye will provide us with additional opportunities to catalyse new functionality for ADAS and AD solutions that will redefine performance.”

In December 2018, Hella Ventures became a major shareholder of AEye as part of its $40M Series B round of financing. The first joint development project will start immediately, with the objective of a SOP in 2022.