Hyundai Mobis is joining hands with Velodyne Lidar, a world-leading lidar company, for mass-producing a level 3 autonomous driving lidar system. Hyundai Mobis also will invest $50 million in Velodyne to reinforce business cooperation in Lidar commercialization.

The two companies will collaborate on a new lidar system supply by integrating Velodyne’s latest lidar sensors with Hyundai Mobis’ cognitive software. Velodyne has the largest share of the global lidar market and exceeds the latest high lidar requirements of global automakers. In this lidar with high specifications, Hyundai Mobis will develop and integrate its own cognitive software. This software will process the outside vehicle environment data gathered by lidar sensors, which means it would recognize and analyze moving or stationary objects, along with road systems such as traffic sign information.

Through the partnership, Hyundai Mobis and Velodyne plan to commercialize their first lidar system for level 3 autonomous driving in 2021. The two companies will mark the start by supplying the system to the Asian market and will gradually expand to automakers in North America and Europe.

With this lidar system, Hyundai Mobis will finalize its sensor technology line up for autonomous driving of level 3 and above, where the main driving force is shifted from human driver to an independent car system. It has successfully developed a short-range radar last year and will secure deep learning-based camera and high-performance radar technology by next year.

“Hyundai Mobis is delighted to cooperate with Velodyne Lidar, one of the industry’s most reliable and mass-production ready Lidar sensor providers to finalize [the] lidar system, which is essential in high level autonomous driving,” said Ko Youngsuk, head of the Hyundai Mobis Strategic Planning division. “Hyundai Mobis will continue to expand strategic collaboration with various innovators to accelerate open innovation for key technologies.”