i3 - March/April 2020 - 21

Clockwise from left: Courtesy of Bosch, Courtesy of WayRay.

Valeo demonstrated VoyageXR and
CallXR, two systems that leverage a
vehicle's ultrasonic sensors, cameras
inside and outside, connectivity and
machine learning algorithms. VoyageXR
allows a person located anywhere in the
world to virtually see inside the vehicle's
cabin and through its windows, and
have a conversation with the driver, taking on the guise of an avatar visible in
the rearview mirror. The remote individual interacts via a virtual reality (VR)
headset and joystick. Valeo calls this the
world's first immersive communication
system for vehicles. With CallXR, the
remote individual uses a smartphone or
tablet in lieu of the headset and joystick
and can interact with the driver. Valeo
compares this experience to a video conference call system. XR is Valeo's acronym for "cross-reality."
Velodyne introduced a tiny, very
inexpensive LiDAR sensor named
Velabit aimed at ADAS applications.
Smaller than a deck of cards and priced
at $100 each, the Velabit offers a range
up to 100 meters and a 60-degree horizontal field-of-view. It can be mounted
in the cabin (behind the windshield), or
in the side mirrors, bumpers or front
grill, and is useful for automatic emergency braking, pedestrian and bicyclist
detection, blind spot monitoring and
cross-traffic detection, says Anand
Gopalan, CEO of Velodyne Lidar Inc.
based in San José, CA. The Velabit is
expected to be in a production car in
about two years, Gopalan says.
Visteon showcased new display technologies as well. One, called MicroZone,
is a modified LCD screen incorporating
patented innovations that yield added
contrast, making it comparable to an
OLED screen but at a lower cost, says
Upton Bowden, advanced technology
product marketing director at the company, based in Van Buren Township, MI.
It also showed a display with an integrated hinge that can flex and bend, to
either wrap around the driver or unfold
for showing content to passengers and new display forms,
including convex displays,
which let auto designers be
more creative.

C TA . t e c h / i 3

i3_0320_Feature_CarTechRoundup.indd 21

WayRay, a Zurich, Switzerland-based competitor to Futurus,
unveiled the first full-spectrum color holographic AR display for
infotainment in self-driving cars. This follows WayRay's CES
2019 demo of its 180-degree Holographic AR Cockpit. Fullspectrum color was made possible by the addition of a blue laser
to the display.
Yank Technologies showed its solution for over-the-air wireless charging of smartphones or tablets anywhere in a vehicle's
cabin using strategically placed antennas. These could be in cupholders and in seat cushions says Josh Yank, co-founder of the
Brooklyn, NY-based company. The company's technology also
could be used in EVs to replace wiring harnesses, thus saving
weight and increasing driving range, Yank says.

EXTRA SENSORY PERCEPTION

WayRay's holographic AR display

"From our perspective, the passenger car industry adoption of
LiDAR is probably in the 2023-2024 timeframe" or later,
because most automakers have delayed their introduction of
vehicles that would use the long-range, front-facing sensors by
a couple of years, observes Frantz Saintellemy, president and
COO of leading LiDAR sensor maker Leddartech Inc., based in
Montreal, QC, Canada. One reason is a lack of readiness for the
complexity of integration, but also no suppliers yet offer a longrange LiDAR sensor that is automotive grade and meets the
performance and cost requirements necessary for adoption in
passenger cars.
At CES 2020, Leddartech introduced a range of LiDAR sensors tailored to self-driving robot shuttles and delivery vehicles:
three "cocoon-style LiDARs" with a wide 180-degree field-of-view
and 50-meter range, priced at $2,500 or less. The company
believes delivery vehicles will be deployed with the technology
sooner than automobiles. Even for ADAS applications, "you need
to get to sub-$500 per LiDAR,"
Saintellemy says. "Over the next four
to five years, what's being deployed
are these mobility vehicles."
LiDAR maker AEye featured its
iDAR technology, which fuses a
high-definition camera and a software-definable "agile LiDAR" whose
scan pattern can be altered, to form
a vision system that can "mimic the
human visual cortex," says Steve
Lambright, vice president of marketing at AEye Inc., in Pleasanton,
CA. The point is to enable a vehicle
to react faster to objects in its path
and, with computing power built
into the sensor, predict the path an
object such as a pedestrian. The
included LiDAR sensor is based on
a fiber laser instead of the more
common solid-state variety. The
company also plans to offer a RGB
or thermal imaging cameras to pair
with it.
MARCH/APRIL 2020

3/13/20 11:30 AM

https://www.valeo.com/en/ https://wayray.com/ https://www.yanktechnologies.com/ https://velodynelidar.com/ https://leddartech.com/ https://www.aeye.ai/ https://www.visteon.com/ https://cta.tech/i3

i3 - March/April 2020

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