See how this company is overhauling current ADAS systems for a safer tomorrow

This story first appeared in the March issue of Jobber News. Click here to access the digital issue.

ADAS diagnostics and the future of autonomous driving raise a lot of questions in the aftermarket community.

As cars become more and more like minicomputers, what do today’s technicians and jobbers need to know about the technology?

LeddarTech, a global leader in Level 1-5 advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD) sensing technology, has been incredibly busy over the course of the last few months. In December 2020, the company announced a strengthened collaboration with Renesas by joining the R-Car Consortium, and with a new collaboration on the development and promotion of an automotive ADAS reference platform. One month later, LeddarTech and OSRAM, a leader in automotive lighting and laser systems, announced that they have entered a long-term agreement, in which LeddarTech will provide their industry-leading LiDAR hardware and software components into Osram’s Percept LiDAR platform.

“One of the limitations of the industry today as we move towards more advanced safety features is that if you change the camera, or if you change any of the configurations, you have to change your entire software suite, as well as the verification validation routine,” said Frantz Saintellemy, president and COO, LeddarTech. “Current camera and radar-based ADAS systems aren’t safe enough and often fail to detect vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists.”

As of July 2022, there will be mandatory vehicle safety requirements that will be imposed on all new vehicle types.”This new regulation will first be launched in Europe under the General Safety Regulation 2019/2144. According to Saintellemy, current ADAS solutions do not meet this new safety regulation. As a result, LeddarTech is working with various OEMs, Tier-1s and Tier-2s to help them integrate the company’s components and software solutions to help meet and surpass these safety requirements. “Our solutions enable customers to leverage existing camera and radar-based systems by improving their detection, classification, and segmentation of obstacles through our unique raw data fusion and up-sampling technology,” Saintellemy explained. “We enable our customers to create the most robust and accurate 3D environmental model that allows our customers to develop the most efficient path planning while reducing costs and improving performance.”

LeddarTech’s components, sensor fusion and perception software are currently being integrated in ADAS and AD systems across the globe to improve vehicle safety performance. “Our technologies are being used by Tier-1/2s and OEMs to improve ADAS system performance for passenger vehicles that will be launched in the market starting in 2024 and beyond,” Saintellemy said. “These vehicles will integrate our software solution for camera and radar fusion and perception.”