Sensor and software company Luminar has raised $100 million in funding to help it scale production of LiDAR sensors for autonomous vehicles.
The $100 million addition raises the company’s total amount of funding raised to more than $250 million.
According to The Robot Report Luminar has also unveiled a sensing and perception platform called Iris that has been in stealth development for the last three years. Luminar is reported to have said Iris, which is a third of the size of the company’s previous LiDAR unit, is slated to launch commercially on production vehicles beginning in 2022.
Austin Russell, Luminar’s chief executive officer told The Robot Report, ‘We’re at a stage where everyone in the industry is hacking together Frankenstein solutions with off-the-shelf parts for their R&D programs, but to successfully achieve series production autonomy, hardware and software have to be seamlessly developed and integrated in tandem.’
‘This combined, turnkey solution for series production vehicles is key to democratising autonomy in the industry, enabling every automaker to deliver on the promise of self-driving capabilities on their vehicles,’ added Russell.
