Ouster and CronAI partner to bring smart 3D perception to ADAS driving systems

16 Nov 2020

Autonomous vehicles sensing development said to "plug gap between 3D sensing and real world applications".

Three-dimensional perception platform start-up CronAI has partnered with Ouster, a digital lidar technology developer, to support Ouster’s current spinning lidar sensors and next-generation solid-state lidar.

CronAI’s senseEDGE platform, described as a self-optimizing, 3D data, deep learning edge inference perception processing platform, enables innovators to develop intelligent solutions using 3D sensors to accurately perceive the real world, such as is required by ADAS driving systems.

The partnership is set to provide Ouster’s partner and customer communities with early access to CronAI’s perception platform, thereby enabling their teams to bridge the gap between complex 3D sensor data perception algorithms and real world applications on the product edge, say the partners.

“This partnership is significant, representing collaboration between a leader in lidar sensor technologies and an AI Software & Hardware platform for 3D Perception,” commented Tushar Chhabra, co-founder and CEO at CronAI.

“Our software platform is designed for processing 3D sensor data and for computer vision, and through our work together, Ouster can focus on building quality sensor technologies while its customers can significantly mitigate their investment risks.

“We’ve architected our platform to leverage the features of FPGAs supporting sequential, parallel and mixed workloads at lower precisions. That all adds up to improvement in throughput, lower latency and reduced power consumption. Now innovators can develop solutions using 3D sensors without the performance bottlenecks of traditional GPU compute hardware.”

Clement Kong, General Manager, APAC, at Ouster said, “A 3D perception platform with edge processing will help our customers accelerate their projects and unlock the perception capabilities of high-resolution digital lidar."

'Reshaping the autonomous world'

Kong continued, “CronAI’s platform can help us reshape the autonomous world – unlocking the potential of smart spaces, transforming the way we secure critical infrastructure and enabling new levels of industrial automation.”

The acceleration of 3D sensor data perception on an edge inference platform is expected to enhance the value of Ouster’s award winning lidar technology by reducing customers’ need to invest R&D dollars, reducing time to market and increasing the efficiency of deployments.

By accelerating algorithms and neural networks on the product edge, Ouster can help its customers rapidly innovate and achieve higher performance per watt, performance per dollar and throughput per TOP. The partnership with CronAI aims to overcome the traditional software and processing bottlenecks that customers have faced when building applications and solutions with 3D sensors.

CronAI recently opened its early access program to partners and commenced porting of customers’ or third-party perception software. It is now accepting pre-orders for development kits to ship in early 2021.