Irish company Provizio has debuted its safety technology at CES in Las Vegas, and said it planned to make it available to drivers by 2025.
The Limerick-based company has developed a radar-backed system, dubbed 5D Perception, that is designed to make driving safer and also facilitate autonomous driving.
The system uses a proprietary software defined radar system to bring LiDAR-like capabilities to cars at a significantly lower cost and a much higher resolution than the LiDAR and radar systems currently available on vehicles.
Technology such as LiDAR is affected by bad weather and, while radar doesn’t have the same issues, it doesn’t have the same resolution offered by LiDAR. Provizio’s 5D Perception Radar uses a LiDAR-like 3D point cloud, machine-learning algorithms and a series of sensors to continuously learn and process the environment around the vehicle.
The five-dimensional perception system can see, track and interpret vehicular behaviour and identify roadway elements, enabling increased safety for drivers. Provizio also claims it beats the range of the incumbent radar systems by more than three times, without the requirement for additional hardware.
“This platform will revolutionise safety in the auto and mobility sectors by paving the way for the most advanced safety and autonomous driving systems, and we firmly believe, in the near future, it will become as ludicrous to get in a vehicle without a 5D Perception driving platform as it would be without seat belts today,” chief executive Barry Lunn said.
Provizio is now working with partners in the industry to bring the technology to mass production by 2025. It is demonstrating the system on a specially equipped Land Rover at CES, showcasing its capabilities.
The system excels where others may struggle - it is not affected by bad weather, for example, unlike some of the demonstrations that were rained off when a downpour hit the Strip on the first day of the show - and it can accurately identify smaller, fast moving vehicles such as motorbikes. It also works in underpasses, and can gauge height. On the demonstration, which showed the system’s vision on a monitor in the car, it even picked up the monorail travelling overhead.
Separately, chipmaker Qualcomm has thrown itself into the world of satellite messaging with a new feature, Snapdragon Satellite, aimed at high-end Android smartphones.
Satellite communication is an area that Apple has put a spotlight on in recent months after it debuted a new SOS feature for its latest iPhone 14 handsets that allows people to communicate with emergency services when they are out of mobile network coverage. But Qualcomm’s technology is not reserved for emergency use, the company said, and could facilitate two-way messaging for recreational use, particularly in rural or offshore locations where mobile signal may be poor or nonexistent.
