The SAIC Motor Commercial Vehicle Division has selected Hesai Technology to provide its automotive-grade, ultra-high-resolution, long-range lidar AT128 for several models. Hesai’s design win will be the first application of its AT128 lidar in SAIC’s commercial vehicle models.
It is part of a strategic cooperation between the two companies and Utopilot, a tech company under the SAIC Group that focuses on intelligent driving solutions for the OEM’s commercial vehicles. The new collaboration expands Hesai’s production relationship with the OEM, building on a January announcement that it would supply the automaker’s new Rising Auto premium passenger electric vehicle brand with the AT128.
Hesai collaborated in 2021 with Utopilot to bring its high-performance Pandar lidar series to SAE Level 4 intelligent heavy-duty trucks that achieved semi-commercial operation at Shanghai Yangshan Port and successfully transported over 100,000 standard containers in 2022. For the new SAIC cooperation, Utopilot applies its full-stack technology and industrial supply chain experience to its Honghu intelligent driving platform, which is equipped with multiple sensors for perception safety redundancy and decision-making for diverse scenarios.
“SAIC Group is a leader in the automotive industry and an early explorer of intelligent driving technology in China with deep expertise in research and development,” said Yifan “David” Li, the CEO and Co-Founder of Hesai Technology. “In the past two years, Hesai and Utopilot have achieved outstanding results in the commercial operation of intelligent heavy-duty trucks.”
“In the future, the two companies hope to see further integration of their software and hardware technologies to create new autonomous driving solutions for a wider range of applications,” added Rui Wang, CEO of Utopilot.
According to Hesai, the collaboration demonstrates the acceleration of the development of autonomous driving technology and the implementation of multi-scene applications. The automotive-grade, ultra-high resolution, long-range lidar has 128 independent VCSEL (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) transmitters to achieve 1.53 million data points per second evenly distributed to detect cars and pedestrians up to 200 m away at 10% reflectivity.
Other key specifications are overall resolution of 1200 x 128, field of view of 120° × 25.4°, resolution of 0.1° (H) × 0.2° (V), power consumption of 18 W, and frame rate of 10/20 Hz. The unit measures 137 mm wide, 112 mm deep, and 48 mm tall.
The AT128 entered mass production and began delivery in 2022, providing intelligent driving functionality for multiple ADAS series production vehicles.
