Presented by
Florian Lenz
Nominated by
Technische Universität München
Blickfeld develops ‘eyes’ for intelligent machines: the company specialises in sensor systems for self-driving vehicles that can capture precise long-distance images of the environmentin high-resolution 3D. Autonomous systems, such as self-driving cars, robots, and drones, need to ‘see’ and ‘understand’ the world around them to safely navigate and operate. For this purpose, they rely on sensors, using scanning laser beams – a technology called LiDAR, which stands for ‘light detection and ranging’. The problem with existing LiDAR technologies is that they lack robustness and a scalable manufacturing process, making the technology costly and prone to failures. Blickfeld has developed a novel proprietary LiDAR technology that tackles these shortcomings. By using commercial off-the-shelf and silicon components, Blickfeld’s sensor technology can be produced with low-cost mass fabrication and meets the technical performance specifications required by car manufacturers. A high resolution and sampling rate is achieved by employing a scanner technology which merges the best of both silicon microfabrication and already established LiDAR concepts. Blickfeld’s approach closes the gap between existing high-cost systems and the automotive mass-market needs, and thus enables safe and affordable autonomous transportation.