Luminar Achieves Automotive Series Production Milestone as First Iris Units Ship
ORLANDO, FL. — Luminar, the global leader in automotive lidar technology powering the introduction of highway autonomy in series production, announced today it has entered the B Sample phase for its next-generation Iris technology as it executes towards 2022 series production, initially on Volvo Cars’ SPA 2 consumer vehicle platform. The first Iris units begin shipping this week to Luminar’s lead series production partner, Volvo Cars, from Luminar’s advanced manufacturing facility in Orlando, Fla.
The milestone marks the completion of engineering validation of its Iris sensor in preparation for auto-grade deployment in series production.
Jason WojackSenior Vice President of Engineering at Luminar
Luminar’s next-generation of custom laser, receiver, scanning, and chips have come together for Iris, its third iteration of commercial product. Iris was first announced last summer as the first sensing platform that would be able to exceed the essential performance, safety, cost and auto-grade requirements needed to take autonomy out of R&D and into automotive series production. This has successfully manifested itself into a cost-effective, seamlessly integrated form factor launching into consumer series production vehicle programs starting in 2022. Luminar has become widely known for its industry-leading 3D data, with camera-like high resolution and radar-like long range, which allows reliable detection of all types of objects out to 250 meters.
Volvo Cars announced earlier this year that it is partnering with Luminar to provide its industry-leading LiDAR and software for Volvo’s next generation cars. The partnership will deliver fully self-driving technology for highways and paves the way for future active safety developments. Luminar has internally developed and is optimizing manufacturing process and testing procedures, which will be transferred over the course of the next year to Luminar’s automotive-certified contract manufacturing (CM) for series production with Volvo and other OEM’s.