Cradle, Hyundai’s innovation venturing business, is investing in Metawave to be able to make use of its WARLORD (W-band Advanced Radar for Long-Range Object Recognition and Detection) radar system.
Metawave specialises in intelligent beam-steering radars for autonomous driving and wireless communication technology. Its WARLORD radar is claimed to increase speed and precision of radar, while needing only one antenna.
It achieves this by having an antenna that “shapes and steers the beam, in all directions using pencil beams, deep learning engines and AI algorithms to recognise objects quickly and send 4D point cloud to the sensor fusion”.
“The investment by Hyundai represents another key company milestone and further proof of our rapid momentum as we bring WARLORD long-range radar with imaging and AI capabilities to autonomous vehicles,” said Metawave CEO Maha Achour.
“With our talented team of mm-wave and metamaterial experts, we were the first to demonstrate Electronically Scanned Metamaterial Array for Autonomous Driving at 77GHz. This technology will be an enabling factor for Hyundai and other auto leaders who are striving to improve the vehicle experience.”
Hyundai plans to bring self-driving vehicles to market by 2021, using technology from Aurora.
By Illya Verpraet