First developed at MIT for vehicles transporting troops around Afghanistan, Boston-based WaveSense recently unveiled what could become the most important part of the autonomous vehicle mix.
In addition to being the most welcoming from a regulatory perspective, the Southwestern U.S. also provides companies like Google and Uber with an escape from the type of weather that can block road signs, disrupt GPS signals, and wreak overall havoc upon the technologies on which autonomous driving platforms are so reliant.
In working to improve these systems' ability to navigate vehicles in rain, fog, and snow, WaveSense has developed a type of radar that penetrates the ground and creates a map based on elements that won’t be affected by weather or faded paint on signs and roads.
Mounted just behind the front wheel, the company states that its system can penetrate up to 10 feet into the road, pinpointing a vehicle’s location to within an inch, even at highway speeds and regardless of weather.
The WaveSense platform essentially creates a geographical fingerprint that can complement LIDAR, radar, and other cameras and sensors to ensure safe navigation even as environmental factors change.
Additional benefits include WaveSense’s price point and footprint, which is smaller and less expensive than many of the data-crunching, energy-absorbing computers that are part of many autonomous driving systems currently in development.
And, as an added bonus, the system has also been used by geologists and archeologists to find underground mineral deposits.