Source丨Venture State (ID: ichuangyebang)
Author丨Pan Lei
Editor丨Haiwai
Source丨MuNiu Technology
Elon Musk couldn't look at the radar for a while.
Tesla also planned to engage in a wave of "de-radar" in October last year, including the cancellation of 12 ultrasonic radars on Model 3 and Model Y.
But Musk seems to have changed his mind again.
In recent days, 4D millimeter-wave radar may appear in Tesla's configuration table, and this previously seemingly unpopular field has become a hot topic.
4D radar maker Arbe Robotics soared as much as 75% before the U.S. market.
"It's logical." One early investor said, "Every change in Tesla means investment opportunities. I will invest in whatever Tesla does."
Wang Wei, COO of Muniu Technology, which was founded in 2015 and has received multiple rounds of financing, said that Tesla used radar earlier, but the performance of radar was not good enough at that time. "Now that the performance of 4D millimeter wave radar has been iterated, it is logical for Tesla to re-launch the radar."
4D millimeter wave radar detection effect
Musk can't escape Maka's law
From a technical iteration perspective alone, Musk previously wanted to throw away all sensors except the camera, and for good reason.
Taking lidar as an example, Velodyne's first 64-line lidar for Google's unmanned car sold for $780,000, and although the price has since dropped significantly to $1,000, it is still unacceptable to Musk.
As for the earlier 3D millimeter-wave radar (working in the millimeter-wave band), Tesla is also not cold because of shortcomings in perception (high-energy microwave pulses or signals can only detect information coordinates in two-dimensional space, and cannot detect height, so it cannot identify overpasses, traffic signs and other objects).
In addition, Tesla's pure visual solution works well, and has been widely verified by users, and the algorithm is becoming more and more sophisticated, which also makes Musk firmly believe that the visual route can solve all problems.
Musk's famous saying is that since humans drive by their eyes, algorithms can also rely on pure vision.
But the growing number of recalls suggests that vision protocols may have some safety bottlenecks.
On February 16, Tesla applied for a recall of about 362,800 vehicles equipped with "fully autonomous driving" software, because this software may cause the vehicle to not be fully stopped before the stop sign, which may cause safety risks.
At the same time, there has been an increase in user complaints about the "ghost brake" — Tesla's driver assistance system sometimes has unnecessarily weird brakes — which may have something to do with the perception element being misled, but no one knows the exact answer.
In this case, it cannot be said that 4D millimeter-wave radar can solve all Tesla's problems, but at least provide safety redundancy.
The reason why 4D millimeter wave radar is "4D" is that it increases the dimensional analysis of "target height" and realizes the information perception of the four dimensions of "3D + height", which allows the vehicle to adapt to more complex road conditions.
As a result, the technical shortcomings have been solved, and even partially realized the performance blind zone of LiDAR's lack of power - for example, more accurate perception can be achieved in rainy scenes, and the detection distance is 300 meters (LiDAR is generally 100-150 meters).
The most important thing is the cost.
Public information shows that the cost of 4D millimeter wave radar is only one-tenth of that of lidar, and the expensive is only about $500, which is completely in line with Musk's law of true fragrance - better performance and lower cost.
Lidar "out of favor"
Because it suddenly became a "Tesla concept stock", Arbe Robotics became a sweet potato.
Founded in 2015, a hardware research and development company based in Tel Aviv, Israel, its radar products are used not only in self-driving cars, but also in drones.
Arbe Robotics' 4D millimeter-wave radar has a detection range of 300 meters and can operate in harsh conditions such as heavy rain or dense fog.
Correspondingly, the laser beam emitted by lidar is generally concentrated at 100-150 meters, and may be affected by bad weather such as fog.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the vast majority of automatic emergency braking systems on the market fail to detect pedestrians at night, and Arbe Robotics' radar chipset can solve this problem.
It's not yet known whether Tesla will adopt Arbe Robotics' radar product, but it looks like the latter offers a perfect technological solution and is therefore sought after in the capital markets.
Coincidentally, autonomous driving chip maker Mobileye also favors 4D millimeter-wave radar.
Amnon Shashua, CEO of Mobileye, said at CES last year that by 2025, all sensors other than the front of the body will only require 4D millimeter-wave radar, not lidar.
This makes 4D millimeter-wave radar a "replacement" for lidar.
Similar to the path of lidar development in China, Chinese companies are also very active in the field of millimeter-wave radar, with participants ranging from listed companies to start-ups.
At the level of listed companies, Weifu Hi-Tech, Shuobide, Jingwei Hengrun and other stocks have continued to rise sharply in recent days, and Weifu Hi-Tech has continued to rise to the limit.
Among them, Weifu Hi-Tech and Jingwei Hengrun have business cooperation with Arbe Robotics.
Last year, Arbe Robotics disclosed a large-scale commercial order with Jingwei Hengrun, which ordered 340,000 radar chipsets from Arbe Robotics.
But in addition to these above companies, there are also start-ups that have laid out 4D millimeter-wave radar products, and there have been new breakthroughs in technology.
5D millimeter-wave radar technology is used in the automotive field
Domestic surpassing 5D radar black technology
Among the startups in the field of 4D millimeter wave, the top position is Wooden Bull Technology, which was founded in 2015.
Unlike the heat caused by hitting Tesla's 4D millimeter-wave radar, Muniu Technology has long attracted investors' attention.
In fact, just recently, Muniu Technology announced the completion of the C round of hundreds of millions of yuan financing, jointly led by Microlight Venture Capital and Jinbang Capital, and other investors include Cangli Investment, Junmao Capital, Baseson Capital, Guohai Innovation Capital and Cuihu Fund.
Last year, Wood Niu Technology also completed hundreds of millions of yuan in financing.
The reason for the frequent large financing is that Muniu Technology has found a way in terms of technology, products and commercialization.
In terms of products, in 2019, Muniu Technology released the world's first 4D imaging radar O-79 4D, which solves the perception problems in harsh environments such as low light and complex obstacles.
The startup is also working with mechanical vehicle manufacturer Bobcat to reduce the 80 percent accident rate to near zero.
MuNiu Technology can even provide 5D millimeter wave radar technology solutions.
Compared with 4D, the fifth dimension added by 5D is that it can detect the "Micro-Doppler" movement information of small objects (such as golf balls), so as to capture tiny moving elements such as wheels, so that the car can better judge the target state.
In specific scenarios, 5D millimeter-wave radar can determine whether the target is a slow vehicle or a stationary vehicle based on the speed of the wheel, and can also determine whether a pedestrian swinging arm is crossing the road.
Being able to detect tiny objects is also useful in the field of smart sports – the Golf Radar Full Swing KIT, developed by Muniu Technology in cooperation with Full Swing of the United States, can achieve long-range dynamic tracking of more than 300 yards and can accurately perceive 16 swings and hit data.
Golf superstars Woods "The Tiger" Woods, Joan Lahm and others have used this technique in games and training.
In addition, the company's millimeter-wave radar products can also be used in flying cars and other fields, such as helping eVTOL aircraft (electric vertical take-off and landing) obstacle avoidance and height fixing.
In terms of intelligent transportation, the traffic detection radar of Muniu Technology can also improve the operation efficiency of the road network.
Wang Wei, COO of Muniu Technology, said that Tesla's ability to be equipped with 4D millimeter-wave radar can indeed activate the market, but before this, customers, including car companies, have reached a consensus on the application prospects of this technology.
"China has the best industrial chain, and there is also the world's largest new energy vehicle market, which is very beneficial to the development of the 4D radar industry." Wang Wei said that the millimeter-wave radar market is ushering in an explosive period.
After 3 years, the market size exceeded 10 billion
According to CICC Research, China's automotive millimeter-wave radar market will reach 11.4 billion yuan in 2025, with a compound growth rate of 19% from 2020 to 2025.
If Tesla really changes its "deradarization" strategy since last year, it means that the market dividend will be accelerated.
For Chinese companies like Muniu Technology, there may be additional benefits about "replacement".
There may be two waves of this "flat replacement" - one is "flat replacement" lidar, and the other is "flat replacement" of overseas manufacturers to achieve domestic substitution.
According to consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, the global market for automotive lidar will be worth $13.54 billion in 2025 — some of which may be split up by 4D millimeter-wave radar.
As for domestic substitution, the lidar field has already staged the story of Chinese companies counterattacking overseas big names, and the 4D millimeter-wave radar field is likely to continue to copy this model.