What’s Happening: Hesai Technology, a lidar sensor manufacturer, has entered into a strategic partnership with autonomous truck company KargoBot to jointly promote the application of Hesai’s automotive-grade, hybrid solid-state lidar AT128 for L4 autonomous trucks. The collaboration aims to create safer and more intelligent commercial logistics applications.
Why It Matters: Lidar is a crucial sensor for advanced autonomous driving solutions, providing high-precision 3D sensing for autonomous vehicles. Hesai’s AT128 is a long-range, automotive-grade hybrid solid-state lidar integrated with 128 lasers and an ultra-high-point frequency of 1.53 million points per second. The AT128 has already been used in various passenger car models since its mass production in 2022.
Key Points:
- KargoBot, a company incubated by Didi Autonomous Driving, focuses on the research and development of L4 autonomous driving technology and commercial operation, with full-stack development capabilities.
- KargoBot’s hybrid-autonomous solution includes a pilot ADAS vehicle with a human driver and multiple L4 self-driving trucks, improving the ability to handle various long-tail scenarios and complex interactions during commercial operations.
- KargoBot’s autonomous trucks are the first L4 commercial trucks in China to use automotive-grade, hybrid solid-state lidar. They have successfully integrated five AT128 sensors into an autonomous truck, achieving 360-degree FOV coverage and significantly reducing vertical blind spots.
- Hesai’s AT128 sensor offers a complete, unstitched field of view and a uniformly distributed structured point cloud, making it algorithm-friendly. KargoBot uses image-like data representations and modern computer vision methods to develop efficient multi-tasking perception algorithms for the AT128.
Bottom Line: The partnership between Hesai Technology and KargoBot aims to advance autonomous driving technology for commercial logistics applications. Hesai’s AT128 lidar sensor, with its excellent performance, high reliability, and cost-efficiency, will help KargoBot develop an autonomous driving system that meets automotive-grade and mass production standards. In the future, Hesai will continue to empower KargoBot to iterate its autonomous driving technology solutions and promote large-scale implementation of autonomous logistics.
