Oct 6, 2020   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Luminar Achieves Automotive Series Production Milestone as First Iris Units Ship

Luminar, the global leader in automotive lidar technology powering the introduction of highway autonomy in series production, announced today it has entered the B Sample phase for its next-generation Iris technology as it executes towards 2022 series production, initially on Volvo Cars’ SPA 2 consumer vehicle platform. The first Iris units begin shipping this week to Luminar’s lead series production partner, Volvo Cars, from Luminar’s advanced manufacturing facility in Orlando, Fla.

The milestone marks the completion of engineering validation of its Iris sensor in preparation for auto-grade deployment in series production.

“It’s an exciting moment for us to be shipping the first units and is proving out that our industry-leading technology can be brought to the consumer vehicle platforms to enable next-generation autonomy,” said Jason Wojack, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Luminar.

Luminar’s next-generation of custom laser, receiver, scanning, and chips have come together for Iris, its third iteration of commercial product. Iris was first announced last summer as the first sensing platform that would be able to exceed the essential performance, safety, cost and auto-grade requirements needed to take autonomy out of R&D and into automotive series production. This has successfully manifested itself into a cost-effective, seamlessly integrated form factor launching into consumer series production vehicle programs starting in 2022. Luminar has become widely known for its industry-leading 3D data, with camera-like high resolution and radar-like long range, which allows reliable detection of all types of objects out to 250 meters.

Volvo Cars announced earlier this year that it is partnering with Luminar to provide its industry-leading LiDAR and software for Volvo’s next-generation cars. The partnership will deliver fully self-driving technology for highways and paves the way for future active safety developments. Luminar has internally developed and is optimizing manufacturing process and testing procedures, which will be transferred over the course of the next year to Luminar’s automotive-certified contract manufacturing (CM) for series production with Volvo and other OEM’s.

ABOUT LUMINAR

Luminar is an autonomous vehicle sensor and software company with the vision to make autonomy safe and ubiquitous by delivering the only lidar and perception platform that meets the industry’s stringent performance, safety, and economic requirements. Luminar has rapidly gained 50 industry partners, including 7 of the top 10 global automotive OEMs. Founded in 2012, Luminar is a 350-person team with offices in Palo Alto, Orlando, Colorado Springs, Detroit, and Munich. For more information please visit www.luminartech.com.