RoboSense announced a partnership with FAW’s Hongqi to equip some of its new vehicle models with high-performance LiDARs.
Smart LiDAR maker RoboSense (Chinese: 速腾聚创) reached an agreement of cooperation with FAW’s Hongqi (Chinese: 一汽红旗) that will see the company provide second-generation smart solid-state LiDAR to a number of Hongqi’s new vehicle models.
According to public information, the second-generation LiDAR from RoboSense will be installed on Hongqi’s FEEA3.0 platform which is an autonomous vehicle electronic and electrical architecture. FEEA stands for FAW electrical/electronic architecture.
FEEA3.0 will be rolled out and mass produced in 2023, with the benefit of improving vehicle’s safety, reliability, and scalability.
Season Wang, the partner and vice president of RoboSense, told EqualOcean that RoboSense’s second-generation solid-state LiDAR has been upgraded to 2D MEMS smart chip scanning architecture, with high level of integration, streamlined structure and highly stable and reliable product performance.
Also, the second-generation LiDAR ditched mechanical scanning for smart chip scanning, giving the vehicle a higher degree of safety, reliability and precision in navigation, he said.
Meanwhile, the second-generation LiDAR meets the requirement of mass production, meaning that there is more room for cost reduction. According to a company statement, RoboSense deployed multiple production lines in Guangzhou and Shenzhen and will produce more than 1 million units by the end of 2022.
As a major LiDAR supplier, RoboSense’s second-generation LiDAR is not only supplied to OEMs including Hongqi, BYD, GAC and Lotus, but also level 4 autonomous driving technology companies, such as Deeproute (Chinese:元戎启行 ) and QCRAFT (Chinese: 轻舟智航).
Notably, Wang mentioned three reasons that RoboSense received many orders from OEMs and other companies. First, the company has mature technology, as RoboSense has been developing second-generation LiDARs since 2016. Second, RoboSense realized mass production of the second-generation LiDAR. Third, the product has a high performance-to-price ratio.
Competition in China’s LiDAR industry is heating up. A number of LiDAR companies including RoboSense, Benewake (Chinese: 北醒光子), Hesai Technology (Chinese: 禾塞科技) and LSLIDAR (Chinese: 镭神智能) are exploring domestic and international markets.