MAGNETI MARELLI’S NEW SMART CORNER™: INTEGRATING SENSOR TECHNOLOGY TO LIGHT UP THE ROAD FOR AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
April 2, 2018 – If you had the chance to attend CES 2018, you probably caught a glimpse of Magneti Marelli’s exhibit featuring a fully functional version of its new Smart Corner solution, which was displayed onsite in a production vehicle. This unique solution integrates the numerous sensors required for autonomous driving (AD) applications (i.e., cameras, radars and LiDARs) into advanced projector headlamps and tail lamps, providing automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with the functionality required for autonomous driving, in addition to exceptional aesthetics and lighting performance.
Through this innovative, modular Smart Corner approach, the leading automotive lighting solutions provider has leveraged its extensive lighting and engineering experience to provide advanced sensing capability in all four corners of the vehicle. LiDAR technology is core to the automotive sensor suite and, accordingly, Magneti Marelli chose to partner with LeddarTech as its provider of compact, automotive-grade solid-state LiDAR (SSL) designs based on the proprietary LeddarCore SoC.
Magneti Marelli’s self-contained, modular approach is key to providing OEMs with the sensor technology solutions they need for autonomous driving implementations. Many OEMs have recognized the need to consolidate the many sensors that will be required for Level 3 Highway Pilot or Level 4 Urban Pilot while maintaining styling and aerodynamics needed for consumer vehicles. Even level 5 Robotic Taxi fleets will see the need to become more efficient and protective of the sensors. The weight, cost and quality improvements due to the elimination of wire routings, connectors, brackets, and the need for calibration and alignment of individual sensors will lead to significant benefits for the OEM.
The Smart Corner offers OEMs a turnkey solution allowing them to bypass the difficult sensor integration process while reducing costs, complexity and weight. In addition, the solution allows for pre-validation of each module to help ensure that quality requirements are met.
In addition to radars, cameras and ultrasonic sensors, Magneti Marelli’s Smart Corner approach relies on LiDAR— the one sensor type that provides the most comprehensive set of data about the environment and objects around the vehicle, and therefore critical to the implementation of fully autonomous driving.
And, in its drive to develop unique solutions that meet OEMs’ strict cost and performance requirements, Magneti Marelli chose to equip its solution with advanced, affordable and high-performance SSL from leading technology provider LeddarTech, whose highly integrable designs provide the flexibility and customizability needed to produce remarkably functional, highly stylized Smart Corner modules tailored to the needs of individual OEMs.
The Smart Corner module was recently featured in a Solution Spotlight in the 2018 edition of LeddarTech’s Automotive LiDAR Magazine.