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TECHNOLOGY Tuesday 18 april 2017

Aspiring tech prodigy tries to re-route self-driving cars

MICHAEL LIEDTKE
AP Technology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) —
Austin Russell, now 22, was
barely old enough to drive
when he set out to create
a safer navigation system
for robot-controlled cars.
His ambitions are about to
be tested.
Five years ago, Russell co-
founded Luminar Tech-
nologies, a Silicon Valley
startup trying to steer the
rapidly expanding self-driv-
ing car industry in a new
direction. Luminar kept its
work closely guarded until
Thursday, when the startup
revealed the first details
about a product Russell is
touting as a far more pow-
erful form of “lidar,” a key
sensing technology used
in autonomous vehicles
designed by Google, Uber
and major automakers.
Lidar systems work by In this photograph taken on Monday, April 10, 2017, Luminar CEO Austin Russell gestures while looking at a 3D lidar map on a
bouncing lasers off nearby demonstration drive in San Francisco.
objects and measuring the Associated Press
reflections to build up a to the point where humans tal firm backed by Thiel nent in self-driving clears, makers of autonomous
detailed 3-D picture of the don’t have to constantly and eBay founder Pierre some believe Luminar may cars that Luminar isn’t
surrounding environment. baby-sit and take control” Omidyar. Russell also be working on the wrong identifying. The partners
The technology is similar of autonomous cars. dropped out of Stanford problem. The big issue for include technology com-
to radar, which uses radio If Luminar’s lidar lives up University after just three lidar systems these days is panies and automakers,
waves instead of lasers. to its promise, some of the months when he won a cost, not safety, said Alex Russell said.
Russell says Luminar’s ver- world’s biggest technol- Thiel fellowship, which pays Lidow, CEO of Efficient THE LIDAR LANDSCAPE
sion, consisting of its own ogy and auto companies students $100,000 to work Power Conversion, which Luminar will be competing
patented hardware and may have been upstaged on promising ideas instead supplies chips for lidar. The against other lidar suppli-
software, will provide 50 by a precocious entrepre- of pursuing a degree. systems currently cost thou- ers such as Velodyne and
times more resolution and neur who says he memo- COST OR SAFETY? sands of dollars apiece. Quanergy Systems, which
10 times the range of cur- rized all the periodic table Also like Zuckerberg, Rus- “You don’t need the reso- have each raised $150
rent lidar systems. Those of the elements when he sell is CEO of his company. lution that would allow a million so far. Velodyne’s
improvements, he said, will was 2 years old. By the time Most of Luminar’s roughly car to stop before a bug backers include Ford Mo-
enable self-driving cars to he turned 11, Russell says 150 employees are older hits its windshield,” Lidow tor, which invested $75 mil-
be sold on the mass mar- he was tinkering with super- than him, including his for- said. “The question comes lion last summer .
ket more quickly. computers. mer mentor in photonics, down to, what is the exact By comparison, Luminar
THIEL BACKBONE Like another technol- 45-year-old Jason Eichen- right amount of information has raised $36 million, some
During an interview in an ogy prodigy — Facebook holz, now the company’s for the car to make exactly of which has been used
empty warehouse on a co-founder Mark Zucker- chief technology officer. the right decision all the to set up its headquarters
San Francisco pier where berg — Russell won the Russell’s father, a former time?” on a former Silicon Val-
Luminar has been testing early support of PayPal co- commercial real estate Luminar plans to being ley ranch that used to be
its lidar, Russell wasn’t shy founder Peter Thiel, who specialist, is the company’s manufacturing 10,000 lidar home for a collection of
about making big claims became a billionaire after chief financial officer. units at a 50,000-square- vintage military tanks.
for its technology. “When investing $500,000 in Face- Now Russell will have to foot plant in Orlando, Flor- Waymo, a company spun
you see your vehicle is book during the compa- prove he has indeed in- ida, this year. Russell won’t off from Google’s early
powered by Luminar, you ny’s infancy. vented something revolu- disclose what they’ll cost. work on self-driving cars,
will know you will be safer,” One of Luminar’s early in- tionary. About 100 of the lidar sys- also looms as an imposing
he said. “We need to get vestors is a venture capi- While lidar is a key compo- tems will be tested by four competitor. q