On April 19, Hesai Technology officially launched an innovative product based on the fourth-generation chip architecture: ultra-wide-angle long-range lidar ATX.
As a platform-based device, this product inherits the company's mature AT platform technology, which has successfully mass-produced hundreds of thousands of devices. By integrating the latest fourth-generation chip technology, ATX has been significantly improved in terms of opto-mechanical design and laser signal transceiver components, achieving the perfect balance of size and performance.
Compared to the company's previous product, the AT128 (which is widely used in the Li Auto brand), the ATX has achieved a 60% reduction in size, reducing the weight to half of 500 grams, and its minimum viewing height is only 25 mm. This design allows the ATX to be more discreet when integrated into the vehicle, which in turn enhances the overall appearance of the vehicle. In addition, the ATX's total power consumption is reduced by 55%, requiring only 8W of power supply.
The ATX's small size and low power consumption allow it to be flexibly mounted in various parts of the vehicle, including on the roof, behind the front windshield and inside the lights, providing automakers with a variety of integration options.
Despite the reduced size, the ATX's performance metrics have been significantly enhanced. Its maximum detection distance can reach 300 meters, which is 50% more than the AT128, and supports up to 256 scan lines, with the best angular resolution of 0.08 degrees by 0.1 degrees, which is more than twice that of the AT128, ensuring excellent detection accuracy.
In its class, ATX LiDAR is significantly better than the standard 120° with its 140° horizontal field of view, thus redefining the technical ceiling of high-performance long-range LiDAR in terms of horizontal field of view. This extended field of view ensures timely detection and response to potential obstacles such as urgently inserted vehicles, pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles, enhancing the ability to handle complex traffic situations.
A standout feature of ATX is the use of Hesai's self-developed Intelligent Point Cloud Engine (IPE), which incorporates a waveform processing unit with 256 cores. This innovative technology enables accurate capture of full waveform data with a sampling rate of up to 24.6 billion samples per second.
Combined with the unique full-waveform intelligent recognition algorithm, ATX can accurately identify and annotate "pixel-level" in the point cloud data in real time to filter out more than 99.9% of environmental noise points, such as rain and fog, exhaust gases emitted by vehicles in front, dust, etc., thereby providing a clearer perception environment for smart cars.
ATX's advanced intelligent noise filtering function greatly reduces the false identification and false triggering events of the system, and effectively suppresses the impact of adverse weather conditions, especially rain and fog, on lidar performance. The introduction of this technology provides a safer and more reliable perception capability for smart cars in the whole time domain, ensuring their safe performance in various weather conditions.
In order to meet the specific needs of LiDAR performance in various use cases of smart cars, Hesai Technology has adopted a highly flexible optical architecture design, giving its ATX product series the ability to 7x optical zoom and support real-time multi-mode switching.
In high-speed driving mode, the radar can activate 7x optical zoom to achieve ultra-long-range detection and high-definition perception up to 500 meters, which greatly enhances the accurate identification of remote road conditions by smart cars, ensuring that the vehicle can maintain a high level of safety even at extreme speeds.
This model of LiDAR has received many mass production commitments, covering many domestic OEMs, including leading traditional automakers, new energy vehicle companies, emerging forces, and mainstream European and American joint venture automakers.
The product is expected to enter mass production in the first quarter of 2025.