LG Innotek is operating vehicles equipped with cameras, radar, and lidar—serving as the "eyes" of autonomous cars—on domestic roads. The company aims to enhance its competitiveness in autonomous driving sensor solutions by utilizing data collected from real-world driving.
On September 29, LG Innotek announced its collaboration with the U.S. autonomous driving software firm Applied Intuition to operate "autonomous driving sensing data collection vehicles" in South Korea. The two companies formed a strategic partnership in March to advance autonomous driving sensing solutions.
The vehicles will primarily operate in the Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi regions. LG Innotek plans to expand its fleet to approximately 20 vehicles, including data collection and autonomous driving software development vehicles, by 2028.
The data collection vehicles will be equipped with cameras, radar, and lidar to gather real-time environmental data, including road conditions, vehicle movements, object locations, and weather changes. This data will be integrated with a digital twin—a virtual environment—to improve sensor performance and validate systems.
Particularly, the company will enhance its "sensor fusion" technology, which combines video information from cameras, distance and speed data from radar, and three-dimensional spatial data from lidar. This will allow the collection of data from exceptional situations that are difficult to replicate in standard testing environments, such as black vehicles in heavy rain, strong backlighting at tunnel exits, and irregular lane markings at construction sites.
Applied Intuition, a partner in this initiative, has secured 18 of the top 20 global automakers as clients. LG Innotek plans to leverage this company's global validation network to utilize driving data collected not only in South Korea but also in the U.S., Europe, and Japan for developing sensing solutions.
Based on real-world driving data, LG Innotek aims to grow its composite sensing business, which supplies cameras, radar, and lidar together. Last year, the company began a joint development of next-generation lidar with the U.S. firm Aeva and has expanded its collaboration this year with Applied Intuition and Kakao Mobility.
The company views autonomous driving and robotics as new growth pillars. It plans to optimize both sensor hardware and software to increase orders from automakers in North America and Europe.
Min Joon, LG Innotek's CTO, stated, "Autonomous driving solutions are evolving from enhancing the performance of individual sensors to optimizing sensors and software based on data. We will quickly seize the physical AI sensing market with our advanced composite sensing solutions based on data."
* This article has been translated by AI.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.