A new ‘color’ Lidar breakthrough just made 'hands-off' self-driving cars a reality, experts say — Chinese tech will 'significantly enhance' spatial intelligence and reduce the need to 'guess' objects like traffic lights

• The world's biggest Lidar maker just unveiled its next-gen technology
• The system can detect color, velocity and reflectivity
• The tech is expected to hit the market later this year

The world's biggest Lidar sensor manufacturer has just announced a next-gen version of its technology that is tipped to give self-driving cars a huge reliability boost.

Hesai Group announced this week that its new color-capable Lidar, called its '6D ETX full-color platform', is able to detect the X, Y and Z coordinates of an object, plus its reflectivity, velocity and color, according to the South China Morning Post.

Compared to the black-and-white imaging that is currently returned by most systems on the market, Hesai Group’s ability to detect color, as well as any reflectivity and velocity, is expected to vastly improve the speed at which autonomous driving systems can determine and categorize objects, such as road sigs, traffic lights and emergency service vehicles.

Hesai CEO David Li Yifan claims that the first iterations of the technology will hit the market later this year, stating that they will be the first of their kind. However, the CEO stopped short of revealing which brands would be receiving the Lidar system first.

“This is not some kind of market hype,” he said in a media briefing on Friday. “It is a fundamental innovation, something that no one I know of has ever done before,” the South China Morning Post reported.

Deutsche Bank conducted its own research paper into the technology, where it concluded that it eliminates the need for “complex stitching or inference”, meaning the autonomous driving system no longer needs to ‘guess’ when identifying critical colored objects like traffic lights, lane lines or construction signs.

It reported that Hesai’s innovation would “significantly enhance” the spacial intelligence of artificial intelligence world models, which will likely shine a spotlight on the already profitable company that counts all of the top 10 Chinese carmakers as its clients.

Analysis: Hands-off autonomy is coming

Most of the major automotive players in China are racing to develop a 'hands-off' Level 3 autonomous driving system, which will safely and legally allow drivers to engage in 'side-tasks' when behind the wheel.

Right now, pilot Level 3 operations have started on designated urban roads in southwest China’s Chongqing and on highways in Beijing, with more approvals expected to follow.

Tesla is also actively testing and rolling out its Supervised Full Self-Driving system in China, but it famously eschews Lidar and other sensors in favor of pursuing its camera-only approach, which it says will drastically reduce the overall cost.

But many Tesla owners are angry that the company promises self-driving capability on older vehicles, when it continues to roll out greater levels of processing power in new product.

China’s push into more advanced Lidar system could help to improve accuracy, as well as the speed at which a reliable self-driving system can be signed off by the authorities.

What’s more, it’s highly likely that China will continue to support cutting-edge technology that hails from its domestic market, rather than letting a company like Tesla become the first to market with a true 'hands-off' autonomous driving system.

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