Cosworth Demonstrates Lidar at New North American HQ

Cosworth, a designer and manufacturer of high-performance engines and other automotive technologies, opens a $50 million advanced production facility and North American headquarters in suburban Detroit.

The highlight of this week’s event at the Shelby Twp., MI, site 25 miles (40 km) north of Detroit was a demonstration of the U.K.-based company’s prototype lidar (light detection and ranging) sensor technology.

Lidar sensors, which use lasers to help self-driving cars navigate, enable Level 4 (highly automated) and Level 5 (completely automated) driving by generating a 3D image of the vehicle’s surroundings in real time. Cosworth says its lidar technology is solid-state, with no moving parts, and is designed and built to provide reliability.

“At the grand opening of our North American manufacturing center we demonstrated the stability, precision, distance and field of view that are necessary to make autonomous or assisted driving safe,” Cosworth CEO Hal Reisiger says in a news release. “With a minimum of 3,200 lasers, a clear 120-degree field of view and 200-meter (656-ft.) range, we believe this solution is a game changer for automotive sensor technology.”

Cosworth’s advanced manufacturing center will be built for the design and development of the hybrid powertrain for the car of the future, the release says. It will be able to produce full electronic and powertrain value streams, solid-state sensors, engineering software and hybrid-engine technologies, as well as provide consulting.

In addition to the lidar demonstration and a tour of the plant and its robotics technology,  Cosworth officials exhibited a Chevrolet Corvette driving simulator equipped with the company’s AliveDrive technology, which collects thousands of data points per second and combines them with high-definition video and audio to allow real-time in-car display of vehicle and driver performance. Its cloud-based functions provide an interactive driving experience.

Originally created for professional motorsport series such as IndyCar and World Endurance racing, more than 100,000 cars equipped with AliveDrive technology are on U.S. roads, Cosworth says.