Hesai Technology partners with Lumentum for next-generation LiDAR solution

Beijing (Gasgoo)- China’s LiDAR supplier, Hesai Technology, announced that it had formed a cooperation with the photonics expert, Lumentum, on hybrid solid-state directional LiDAR solutions for ADAS.

AT128; photo credit: Hesai Technology

Hesai said in a press release, LiDAR sensor is a necessary part of autonomous vehicles. However, conventional LiDAR approaches are limited in mass application by high costs and subpar integration levels. Incorporating VCSEL array light sources, the new generation LiDAR designs can significantly improve product integration levels, making it affordable and scalable, thus raising LiDAR’s competitiveness substantially in the ADAS market.

Over the past few years, more than a billion Lumentum VCSEL arrays have been broadly deployed to mobile communications, consumer electronics, industrial applications, and many others. In the meantime, Lumentum's advancements in VCSEL array technology achieved record-breaking peak optical power densities and efficiencies, making it compatible with high-performance ADAS and autonomous vehicle applications.

Hesai's AT128 is a hybrid solid-state directional LiDAR that features a 200-meter range at 10% reflectivity, high point density (>1.5M points per second), and small form factor. Each AT128 incorporates 128 of Lumentum's VCSEL arrays emitting at 905 nm.

In the past years, Lumentum's VCSEL arrays have accumulated massive shipment experiences in the consumer electronics market. The experiences helped the company build its multi-junction VCSEL array.

Currently, Hesai’s AT128 has landed procurement orders from multiple automakers, amounting to millions of units in total, with scaled production and delivery starting in 2022.