FLIR Systems partners with Veoneer

The Veoneer system will be the first in the industry to include multiple thermal sensing cameras that provide both narrow and wide field-of-view capabilities to enhance the safety of self-driving vehicles. Thermal sensing cameras excel in driving situations where other sensor technologies are challenged, including low-visibility and high-contrast conditions such as nighttime, shadows, dusk and also challenging weather conditions such as fog. When combined with analytics, thermal sensing cameras can help detect and classify a broad range of common roadway objects and are especially adept at detecting people and other living things, what AVs want to avoid most. With the ability to see up to four times farther than headlights at night, thermal sensors detect the heat given off by everything. “As the automotive industry undertakes the enormous technical challenge of building safe autonomous vehicles, cutting-edge sensing technologies, including thermal, are needed to save lives and provide greater situational awareness in all conditions,” says Frank Pennisi, President, FLIR Systems’ Industrial Business Unit, in a press release. “FLIR’s automotive-qualified thermal sensing cores are a key component of Veoneer’s thermal sensing cameras and systems, which have proven effective on hundreds of thousands of passenger vehicles to date. This selection shows the value of thermal sensing for self-driving applications, paving the way for future adoption by other automotive manufacturers.” FLIR thermal sensing cores are also part of Veoneer’s fourth generation thermal sensing system scheduled to launch next year.