Baraja showcases per-point Doppler LiDAR technology to accelerate true autonomy

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May 10, 2022, 08:00 ET

Baraja's Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR features per-point Doppler capabilities in the hardware, enabling safer autonomy through robust perception and performance

DETROIT, May 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Baraja, developer of the breakthrough Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology for autonomous vehicles, today showcased its industry-first per-point Doppler capabilities, demonstrating significant progress toward the first Random Modulation Continuous Wave (RMCW) LiDAR to deliver Doppler capabilities embedded in the hardware.

Person left: moving away (red) and person right: moving towards (blue)

Baraja van: while turning the front (red) is moving away from us while the back (blue) is still moving towards the sensor — Person left: moving away (red) and person right: moving towards (blue) Baraja van: while turning the front (red) is moving away from us while the back (blue) is still moving towards the sensor

Announced at a press briefing during AutoSens Detroit on May 10, the news is the latest in a series of technological advancements Baraja has achieved with its Spectrum HD technology, designed for automotive integration at scale, with samples available to select strategic partners later this year.

Baraja will be demonstrating its Doppler capability on its proven Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology, which revolutionizes the autonomous driving landscape by helping vehicles accurately measure the velocity of moving objects and fully understand the world around them.

Traditional LiDAR systems typically rely on computationally-intensive, frame-to-frame estimations of velocity, requiring tradeoffs in performance, accuracy and timeliness of critical measurements. Spectrum HD uses RMCW (Random Modulation Continuous Wave) and homodyne detection to measure the distance and velocity of an object. This means that every point, and every object within the scene, has its velocity directly measured, instantly. By combining this detection with Spectrum-Scan™ and RMCW, Spectrum HD helps reliable detection of objects — from pedestrians to vehicles or animals — at long range and speed to enable safer autonomous driving.

Instantaneous per point Doppler velocity measurement, at speed, also enables Spectrum HD to help detect critical edge cases ensuring autonomous vehicles can understand and react to extreme scenarios quickly. By measuring and differentiating objects at speed and long distance, Spectrum HD will enable autonomous vehicles to detect and track small, individual objects such as pedestrians at range, and monitor for sudden changes in movement, which require fast reaction from the vehicle.

"Per-point Doppler at the hardware level is critical to enabling safer and more reliable autonomous driving," said Federico Collarte, Founder and CEO of Baraja. "We are proud to be the first company to have accomplished this with a RMCW Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR. We continue to meet our milestones and are excited to develop a product that the automotive industry desperately needs."

In 2021, Baraja announced Spectrum HD, a world-first LiDAR system ready for full autonomy at scale. Spectrum HD delivers high-performance sensing at range, with per-point Doppler capability at the hardware level to enable automotive integration at scale. This announcement is further confirmation Baraja is on track.

Marking a generational leap for automotive LiDAR, the new LiDAR system enables the range, resolution and performance required for true autonomy, without the traditional trade-offs faced by other legacy LiDAR technologies. Spectrum HD removes blur and speckle, and is immune to interference from other light sources, including other LiDARs.

Emil Hallstig, SVP Product Area Lidar at Veoneer, a Tier 1 supplier and strategic partner of Baraja, commented on the announcement saying, "We are excited about the progress we are making with Baraja to bring autonomous driving technology to scale. The ability to measure instantaneous Doppler velocity in a RMCW Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR is unmatched and creates significant opportunities for us in the near future."

For more information on Baraja please visit www.baraja.com/en/spectrum-hd-coming-soon.

About Baraja
Baraja is building the future of LiDAR to enable the autonomous future. With its revolutionary Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology, Baraja gives leading automotive companies a solid-state system in the fast axis that sets a new benchmark in precision and reliability.

Baraja was founded in 2016 by telecommunications engineers Federico Collarte and Cibby Pulikkaseril, who discovered a way to use the industry's proven photonics technology to solve the problems faced by legacy LiDAR. Baraja is backed by Sequoia, Blackbird Ventures, Hitachi Construction Machinery and Main Sequence.

About Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR
Baraja's revolutionary Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR completely rethinks the way autonomous vehicles see the world around them. Built on proven optical and photonics technologies from the telecommunications industry, Spectrum-Scan™ precisely steers infrared lasers through prism-like optics in the sensor, rapidly switching the laser's wavelength to send each color of light in a different direction — the same way optic fiber technology works. The resulting pointclouds are extremely high-resolution and immune to interference from other light sources and LiDAR systems. Baraja Spectrum-Scan™ operates on the 1550 nm infrared spectrum, making it safe for human eyes, and creates crystal-clear pointclouds with a high-resolution 2000-channel vertical axis and responsive focus to effectively detect objects at ranges of more 250 metres.

SOURCE Baraja