Monocular 3D computer vision for ADAS and autonomous vehicles

Owl Autonomous Imaging offers the availability of an Evaluation Kit for their new Thermal Ranger ADAS and Autonomous Navigation Development Platform.

This hardware and software kit allows Tier 1 and OEM automotive companies to evaluate its AI Thermal Ranger imaging solution for usage in their Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking and other ADAS applications supporting L2, L2+ and L3/L4 requirements. Its monocular thermal camera solution allows 2D and 3D perception for object classification, 3D segmentation of objects, RGB-to-thermal fusion and extremely accurate distance measurements.

"Our unique, patented solutions deliver panoramic thermal imaging and dense range maps are superior to HDR RGB cameras, and/or LiDAR or RADAR sensors for difficult night and blinding light situations," says Chuck Gershman, CEO of Owl Autonomous Imaging. "Unlike cumbersome stereo camera approaches, a single Owl AI 3D thermal camera delivers distance information throughout the entire field of view and is immune to vehicle vibration for reliable and robust mapping. Thermal sensing is an important camera modality which can see in complete darkness as well as in blinding light, which is critical for pedestrian safety."

Claimed to be the world's only Monocular 3D Thermal Ranging Solution, the platform not only allows cars to see at night but also allows the vehicle to know how far away the living object is and what it is. The company's 3D Thermal Ranger currently offers VGA image resolution. However, shortly, utilising its in-development HD imaging will offer a 150X improvement in resolution and cloud density over other sensing modalities.

It functions day and night, in all weather, and definitively classifies vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, animals and vehicles, all the while calculating position and direction to allow safe autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicle operation. When the environment blinds other cameras and perception sensors, thermal ranging cameras work.