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07 Jan 2025
Long-term deal with Aurora Innovation expected to scale deployment of autonomous freighting technology.
Aurora Innovation, the US-based developer of autonomous driving technology utilizing high-end lidar alongside radar and cameras, has announced a deal that is expected to help scale its deployment in driverless trucks.
The strategic agreement, revealed during the CES 2025 event in Las Vegas, features AI computing leader Nvidia and car parts giant Continental.
Nvidia’s "DRIVE Thor" and "DriveOS" systems are set to be integrated with the Aurora Driver system, with the “Level 4” self-driving technology currently slated for mass production in 2027.
Aurora, which recently opened a new lidar development and production facility in Bozeman, Montana, had previously signed up Continental to manufacture Driver, and testing of hardware prototypes is expected in the coming months.
Nvidia’s automotive push
Production samples of Nvidia’s “DRIVE Thor” are now slated to become available in the first half of this year, with the firm’s CEO and CES 2025 plenary speaker Jensen Huang commenting:
“The autonomous vehicle revolution has arrived, and automotive will be one of the largest AI and robotics industries. Nvidia is bringing two decades of automotive computing, safety expertise and its ‘CUDA AV’ platform to transform the multi-trillion dollar auto industry.”
Nvidia points out that the majority of today’s car manufacturers, truckmakers, robotaxi, and autonomous delivery vehicle companies, as well as tier-one suppliers and mobility startups, are developing on the computing firm’s “DRIVE AGX” platform.
“With cutting-edge platforms spanning training in the cloud to simulation to compute in the car, Nvidia’s automotive vertical business is expected to grow to approximately $5 billion in fiscal year 2026,” stated the Silicon Valley tech giant.
During this year’s CES Continental is showing off an early prototype of the Aurora Driver hardware that is being developed in collaboration with Volvo VNL Autonomous.
Aurora’s lidar element relies on frequency modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) technology, which is significantly more complex than time-of-flight lidar but able to determine both the position and velocity of objects on the road, and compatible with mass production on semiconductor wafers.
In-cabin FMCW lidar
In a related development Aeva, another US lidar startup working on FMCW, is using CES 2025 to demonstrate an in-cabin system integrated behind a custom windshield made by collaborator Wideye.
A Belgium-based subsidiary of glass maker AGC Group, Wideye has formulated a custom glass material that is transparent at the FMCW emission wavelength - typically around 1500 nm - meaning that the lidar system can sit inside a vehicle.
Gaetan Friart, Wideeye’s CEO, explained: “Placing the lidar behind Wideye windshield with other in-cabin optical sensors meets the stringent demands for next-generation vehicle autonomy without compromising on vehicle design.”
Aeva also has designs on the trucking segment, and has just extended its collaboration with the Daimler subsidiary Torc that will see the two firms work together on “Level 4” self-driving systems.
More specifically, they will share 4D lidar sensing data and a Freightliner Cascadia vehicle platform, for use in long-range sensing applications.
“The collaboration builds on the production agreement signed last year when Daimler Truck selected Aeva as its supplier of long and ultra-long range lidar for its series production autonomous commercial vehicle program,” announced the partners.
The multi-year production agreement is aiming to deploy commercial, autonomous Daimler Truck vehicles by 2027.
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