Opsys Announces Major Customer Collaborations For It’s Solid State LiDAR Products

Opsys, with locations in Israel, California and the Czech Republic, develops and builds solid state scanning LiDAR systems that utilize a combination of fully addressable VCSEL  (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers) and SPAD arrays (Single Photon Avalanche Photodiodes). It has about 70 employees, has raised $46M to date, and is raising a $100M C round in Q1 2022. The most recent version of the product in their roadmap is the SP3 (see Figure 1), targeted for production in Q4 2022 and designed for long range, high resolution and high frame rates under all weather conditions and > 90% PoD (probability of detection) at maximum range.

The company recently announced a major customer collaboration with SL World, a large Korea-based manufacturer of automotive headlamp assemblies. Opsys is working with SL World on integrating its SP3 LiDAR into headlamp assemblies and serving as a qualified automotive systems manufacturer and integrator for the Opsys LiDAR. Opsys expects this relationship to drive penetration of its LiDAR into Asian automotive OEMs.

Eitan Gertel, Opsys Chairman also indicated that the company has signed agreements with other automotive customers which will be publicized in the near future. These include:

1) A leading China-based vehicle manufacturer (electric and internal combustion driven) which recently launched an L4 (conditional autonomy) driverless taxi, and intends to equip all its L3 and L4 level autonomy vehicles with LiDAR. Opsys has signed an exclusive supply agreement with their Tier 1 supplier.

2) A China-based manufacturer of optical systems and sensors for a large number of applications ranging from smartphones and smart infrastructure to transportation and security, with annual revenues of ~$10B. Opsys has an exclusive agreement with this company for supply of LiDARs for autonomy applications. The company expects to sell these into 1 million cars/year by 2025.

3) A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a major European automotive Tier 1 supplier. The companies will cooperate on industrialization and integration of the Opsys LiDAR into major automotive ADAS platforms.

The SP3 can be considered a basic building block LiDAR, with multiple units combined in different configurations to address specific customer and application requirements. The benefits of this approach are significant from a manufacturing perspective – custom designs and performance can be achieved using a single base unit, reducing manufacturing complexity, enabling lower cost and economies of scale. Figure 2 shows a point cloud created with eight base units to image a 220°x13° Field of View (FoV). The center 45°x13° region uses four units providing a 0.1°x 0.1° angular resolution, and images to a 200 m range. Two units on each side cover a 90°x13° FoV with 0.2°x 0.2° angular resolution.

Region of Interest (or ROI) LiDARs are becoming popular – and it generally means detecting spatial regions which warrant more attention (either by looking at full LiDAR frames and using software or using radars or cameras to cue the LiDAR). Once identified, the LiDAR uses all its resources to achieve longer range or better resolution in the narrower FoV it identifies as interesting. Opsys has a different twist to this. It always senses the full FoV at all times, but devotes more laser pulses in the ROI to achieve higher PoD and extend the range. The ROI is addressable and configurable on real time basis and can be moved to any locations on the FoV as specified by the user within a single frame while the full FoV is continuously being scanned. The number of ROI windows available instantaneously with the Opsys system is equal to the number of building block used for covering the full FoV. The unit was demonstrated in bright sunlight at at CES on a moving vehicle. The range and resolution of the the resulting point clouds were impressive.

Eitan Gertel, the executive chairman of Opsys Board, is excited about these developments. According to him, “achieving these milestones required a careful balancing of cost, performance, reliability and manufacturability platforms. Guaranteeing superior range, resolution and FoV with no moving parts was imperative to these customers. Finally, the ability of the Opsys LiDAR to achieve a significantly high PoD even under challenging weather and lighting conditions ensures higher robustness of the perception stack, leading to much higher levels of safety of the overall ADAS system.”