Aurora Unveils Next-Gen Hardware for 2023 Commercial Launch
Aurora reveals a feature-complete, modular hardware system combining cameras, lidar, and radar to power its upcoming trucking and ride-hailing services. The new setup detects objects over 300 meters away and handles challenging lighting conditions.
Aurora introduces its next-generation hardware system designed for commercial autonomous driving, featuring a sleek, modular rack that combines cameras, radar, and lidar. This new setup debuts in commercial pilots this year and serves as the foundation for Aurora's planned trucking launch in 2023 and ride-hailing rollout in 2024. The integrated sensor suite detects pedestrians from over three football fields away and navigates challenging conditions like thick dust, bright sunsets, and blinding glare.
The upgraded hardware includes a powerful high-resolution camera suite that provides a complete 360-degree field of view. These custom-designed cameras utilize advanced automotive-grade technology to see clearly in difficult lighting scenarios, such as facing headlight glare, sun glare, and transitioning through tunnels. By combining these visual inputs with other sensors, the system creates a robust understanding of the surrounding environment.
Aurora also relies on its proprietary FirstLight Lidar technology to instantly measure the position and velocity of every observed point. This allows the Aurora Driver to build a dynamic 3D map of the world and accurately track the speed of oncoming traffic. The entire hardware suite fuses the best elements from Aurora's previous development and Uber ATG into a single deeply integrated system optimized for commercial scale.