This week is a huge week for digital lidar. On Tuesday, we announced our intention to acquire Sense Photonics and form a new division of our company, Ouster Automotive.
This proposed acquisition is a powerful combination of Sense’s solid-state digital lidar expertise and Ouster’s commercial and manufacturing expertise. Together we will introduce an exciting new line of automotive solid-state digital lidar sensors, as well as continue to deliver Moore’s Law-like improvements to our scanning sensors.
The Sense team has accomplished a huge amount over the past four years. Most notably, they have built the first true solid-state digital lidar sensor, leveraging the same underlying VCSEL and SPAD technology as our scanning OS series digital lidar sensors. We are thrilled at the prospect of joining forces with their impressive team to establish a true digital lidar powerhouse.
We are fully committed to our existing roadmap of development, manufacturing, and support of our scanning OS series sensors alongside the new solid-state product line. Our current plan is to develop these solid-state products primarily for the automotive market, with a focus on consumer ADAS and commercial vehicle programs.
With the planned addition of the Sense Photonics team, Ouster is positioned to be a top technology and commercial partner for the automotive market. We plan to integrate Sense’s technological and commercial advancements to:
- Establish Ouster Automotive under the leadership of current Sense Photonics CEO Shauna McIntyre and a team of key executives that we expect to join Ouster
- Accelerate our solid-state lidar roadmap by 12+ months to bring to market a breakthrough 200-meter range solid-state lidar and our planned multi-sensor lidar suite for L2+ autonomy
- Deliver on major development agreements and advance series production programs currently under negotiation with automotive OEMs for start of production in 2025-2026
Sense’s talented engineering team and robust IP portfolio will help us to expand our product offering and improve our product performance over time. We’re excited for the bright road ahead of us.
For Automotive OEM and Tier 1 partners interested in learning more, please contact us.
For our off-highway, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure customers, we will have exciting updates for the scanning platform coming soon!
This information is made available by Ouster Inc.
