General Motors Co’s venture capital arm has decided to invest in Oculii, a startup aimed at making software for radar sensors in self-driving cars. The news was announced by Oculii co-founder Steven Hong.
According to Reuters, this investment will give GM the opportunity to use Oculii’s software to upscale the radar sensors included in their own partially automated vehicles and fully self-driving cars.
Steven Hong, who founded the company along with his father Lang, expressed his satisfaction in GM’s decision to invest, stating that this provides a “fantastic signal they’re serious about the technology and bullish about radar in general.”
Not all vehicle manufacturers have expressed the same confidence in radar sensors as GM, however. Tesla Inc decided to remove radar sensors from its models this year, because of a variety of safety and performance concerns over its advanced driver assistant system.
While Hong agrees with Tesla about the shortcomings of radar systems, he maintains that high-resolution radars could prove to be key backups to cameras and other systems when they fail.
