Conference:  Transform X 2021

Authors: Austin Russell

2021-10-07

Austin Russell, CEO of Luminar Technologies, sits down with Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, to discuss the future impact of LIDAR sensors on the autonomous vehicle industry. Austin shares what he saw that was lacking in existing AV sensors that led him to create Luminar Technologies and dives into the core requirements that they set out to fulfill with their own LIDAR sensors. He explores the optimal way to balance the capabilities of different sensor technologies. Together Austin and Alexandr go on to discuss the bottlenecks inherent in learning from data at the scale required to build safe autonomous vehicles, how sensor manufacturers and OEM companies should be partnering together, and the business models and market opportunities that show the most promise in the future. What does the choice of sensor technologies mean for downstream perception, prediction, and planning algorithms? What do we need from today's hardware or software to enable L4/L5 urban self-driving autonomy? What is the most critical strategic decision that CEOs of companies in this space should be thinking about? Join this discussion to hear how LIDAR sensors for autonomous vehicles are moving from small-scale experimentation to large-scale production and what impact they might have in the industry and for vehicle-owners everywhere.