Cepton, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPTN) has unveiled its proprietary lidar simulation platform StudioViz.
The company said that StudioViz aims to streamline lidar adoption processes from productization to deployment, allowing OEMs to fast-track the implementation of lidar-based advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicle (AV) technology at a minimized cost.
Developed by Cepton’s in-house software teams, its functionalities include virtual environment creation, high-fidelity lidar data visualization, placement optimization, sensor fusion assessment, perception solution development, and manufacturing validation and scaling.
“StudioViz accelerates the testing, development and deployment of Cepton’s lidar technology by offering an efficient and cost-effective solution,” Christian Nickolaou, product owner at Cepton, said.
“The deployment of lidar at scale is such a complicated process that many things need to be tested and validated before a solution can be even considered for use case-specific volume adoption, such as sensor performance, system compatibility and mounting locations. Upfront time, labor and monetary investments in those early stages of the deployment can be monumental, if OEMs heavily rely on physical implementation and benchmarking.”
He highlighted that, through StudioViz’s simulation tools, OEMs and researchers will be able to accurately gauge the suitability of Cepton’s lidar solutions for their needs without substantial investments in hardware, installation and data acquisition.
“Through its user-friendly interface, a customer can now visualize true-to-life data generated from different Cepton lidars when placed behind the windshield and in the roofline, the front grille, the side mirrors and the headlamps or taillamps,” Nickolaou said.
“This will effectively eliminate concerns about having to make irreversible alterations to the test vehicle or purchase additional accessories for different setups, not to mention the significant amount of time saved on physical installation.”
Nickolaou also pointed out the platform’s cost benefit in terms of reducing monetary investment in data generation and acquisition for the development of perception solutions.
“As we have seen with some of our customers, collecting and sorting out real-life data from the lidar hardware can take up nearly 50% of the entire investment in the building of perception software capabilities,” he said.
Additionally, the company has been utilizing StudioViz to train, validate, and refine algorithms for its own static and dynamic perception solutions resulting in efficiency and performance improvements.