On the road to developing autonomous technologies, perhaps nothing is more important than the vehicle being able to see the world around it. To help meet this challenge, Magna and Innoviz Technologies will supply the BMW Group with solid-state LiDAR for upcoming autonomous vehicle production platforms.

(Image: Innoviz Technologies)

The new-business award, one of the first in the auto industry to include solid-state LiDAR for serial production, underscores Magna’s ability to support customers with flexible, scalable solutions and transform innovative technologies into automotive-grade products. While Magna has demonstrated via MAX4 the capability to develop a complete autonomous platform, it can also support customers by providing various building blocks of the overall system as in this case with BMW.

“We value the opportunity to support a premier brand such as BMW with our innovative technologies in sensors and systems,” said Kelei Shen, president of Magna Electronics. “Our strong systems and integration knowledge and complete-vehicle expertise give us the ability to provide scalable solutions for different levels of autonomy.”

Recognizing that LiDAR is one of the critical enablers to achieve the desired levels of performance and overall safety, Magna collaborated with Israeli LiDAR provider Innoviz Technologies to integrate automotive-grade, solid-state LiDAR into its autonomous driving platform. LiDAR, Magna’s ICON RADAR and other sensors and systems within its MAX 4 provide a base platform for OEM products and mobility platforms of the future.

This solid-state high-resolution LiDAR technology generates a 3D point cloud in real time of the vehicle’s surroundings, even in challenging settings such as direct sunlight, varying weather conditions and multi-LiDAR environments. In addition, the solution provides a complete computer vision software stack and algorithms to turn 3D vision into critical driving insights. The Magna/Innoviz comprehensive sensing solution delivers on critical needs including performance, cost, and compact size.

“BMW is setting a high standard in autonomous vehicles development, and their vote of confidence in our LiDAR demonstrates how advanced our technology is,” said Omer Keilaf, cofounder and CEO of Innoviz. “The Innoviz and Magna teams collaborated to meet BMW requirements in quality and validation plans, and functional safety. Automakers have been looking for a LiDAR technology provider to deliver a mass-market solution, and we are proud to see our product coming to series production.”