Benzinga | Nov 9, 2021 11:25AM EST

Luminar Lidar Selected for NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion Autonomous Vehicle Reference Platform

Luminar Technologies, Inc., the global leader in automotive lidar hardware and software technology, announced today at the NVIDIA GTC conference that its lidar solution has been selected to be part of the sensor suite in the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion autonomous vehicle reference platform. This AI vehicle computing platform accelerates development of autonomous consumer vehicles with planned production starting in 2024.

By offering automakers a qualified, complete sensor suite featuring Luminar's lidar solution, on top of NVIDIA's centralized high-performance compute and AI software, DRIVE Hyperion provides everything needed to develop production autonomous vehicles.

DRIVE Hyperion will utilize one forward-facing long-range Luminar Iris lidar in its Level 3 highway driving configuration. Iris' custom lidar architecture is designed to meet the most stringent performance, safety and automotive-grade requirements to enable next-generation safety as well as assisted and autonomous driving on production vehicles.

"NVIDIA has led the modern compute revolution, and the industry sees them as doing the same with autonomous driving," said Austin Russell, Founder and CEO of Luminar. "The common thread between our two companies is that our technologies are becoming the de facto solution for major automakers to enable next-generation safety and autonomy. By taking advantage of our respective strengths, automakers have access to the most advanced autonomous vehicle development platform."

"Our collaboration with Luminar bolsters the DRIVE ecosystem of companies that are focused on building best-in-class technologies for enabling autonomous driving functionalities," said Gary Hicok, Senior Vice President of Engineering, NVIDIA. "Luminar is pioneering a unique, scalable solution that complements the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion platform."