The first launch customer of the autonomous software solution will be Volvo Cars
Sentinel is powered partly by Zenseact’s OnePilot software. (Credit: Zenseact)
Luminar Technologies, an autonomous vehicle sensor and software company, has partnered with Zenseact to develop the Sentinel full-stack autonomous solution for series production vehicles.
Zenseact is a newly created software company owned by Volvo Cars. The latter is the first launch customer of the full-stack autonomous solution.
Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell said: “Zenseact has greater experience in advanced ADAS and autonomous software for production vehicles than anyone I’ve seen in the industry, having decades of experience delivering to Volvo Cars and nearly a dozen other production programs.
“We are working together day in and out to deliver this comprehensive autonomous software solution for Volvo Cars, and now are making this solution available to the industry at large.”
Sentinel integrates the OnePilot autonomous driving software solution of Zenseact with the Iris lidar perception software of Luminar. Besides, it integrates other components as a foundation to enable auto manufacturers to equip their production vehicles with the Highway Autonomy and Proactive Safety capabilities.
Both Highway Autonomy and Proactive Safety are two core functionalities of Sentinel.
The Proactive Safety feature enables vehicles to avoid collisions with evasive manoeuvres in a proactive manner. On the other hand, the Highway autonomy feature facilitates hands-free, eyes-free completely autonomous driving on highways without any attention from the human driver.
Zenseact CEO Ödgärd Andersson said: “The whole point of autonomous driving technology is to reduce accidents and save lives. This alliance enables us together to make that technology more broadly accessible and thus even more impactful.”
Zenseact will handle the responsibility of delivering its OnePilot software and Luminar’s perception software to Volvo Cars. On the other hand, Luminar will handle the responsibility of offering the holistic Sentinel solution to other automakers.
Sentinel is powered partly by the OnePilot software, which helps in giving a single user experience right through the journey.
OnePilot continuously studies the surroundings to facilitate autonomous highway driving apart from giving useful information and warnings to driver. It can also intervene by taking over controls to ensure a safe journey.
Sentinel is also designed to enable over-the-air updates to expand the operating domain of autonomy and further enhance vehicle safety over time.