Aurora, the self-driving technology developer, announced its plan to acquire Blackmore, a US-based LiDAR company, asserting LiDAR as a critical component for autonomous vehicle.

In Aurora’s announcement, the company noted that on top of its prior knowledge of self-driving technology, it is now focusing on the next generation LiDAR technology called Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW). Blackmore, with its expertise in FMCW, will provide Aurora advantages of high dynamic range, single photon sensitivity, and interference immunity, which advance safety and reliability in different environment conditions. Aurora believes that the acquisition will enable it to offer “a safer, more efficient, and more cost-effective Driver.”

(image: Aurora)

Established by former engineers from Waymo/Google, Tesla and Uber, Aurora has been working with automobile manufacturers including Volkswagen and Hyundai. The company’s decision of buying a LiDAR company marks its support of LiDAR in the development of self-driving technology, which is opposite to Elon Muck, who considered the component unnecessary.