Technology start-ups continue to snare the big money and it appears they also have the grace of no real time limit to deliver their precious jewels
While it is still termed as a technology start-up company, Baraja based in Sydney NSW has secured $40 million in fresh second tier funding to further develop its LiDAR tech for autonomous vehicles.
And there is a big name in this funding round, Hitachi Construction Machinery (Hitachi CM) has stumped up as a main investor in this second round of collections.
With expectations that Baraja’s LiDAR tech will be the stepping stone to gain the lead in autonomous operation for ultra-large hydraulic excavators and mining dump trucks.
Baraja says it has developed a new type of LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology that it calls Spectrum-Scan. With the ability to measure objects at spans of over 250m and with a 360-degree field of view.
The Baraja technology connects a laser to prism-like sensors along a fibre optic cable. And when light reaches the optics, it deflected in a pattern that enables it to measure a high resolution position of any surrounding objects.
Hitachi CM engineers were quick to realise how the Baraja technology with no rotating lasers and hardly any moving parts would be suited for rugged mining and quarry models.
It is understood that Hitachi CM undertook lengthy testing of the device in its mining models before committing to the investment and found the technology has the potential to take its badge to level 4 hands-off autonomy.
Hitachi Construction Machinery chief technology officer Hideshi Fukumoto said, “Spectrum-Scan lidar is a must-have technology providing better autonomous sensing solutions for mining customers who demand increasingly higher safety and production efficiency.
“We are delighted to be working with Baraja, a company with leading-edge technology in this field.”
He added, “More than just an investment relationship, we expect that this relationship will lead to technological improvements and accelerated commercialisation for both parties in areas such as terrain measurement and obstacle detection.
“Through this investment, Hitachi Construction Machinery will accelerate the improvement of autonomous haulage systems (AHS) and the practical application of remote and autonomous operation of ultra-large hydraulic excavators.
“As well as expand its application to the civil engineering and construction fields. We will also strengthen our open innovation initiatives in the digital field, such as this one.”
Hitachi CM was one of the main investors in funding round two that raised A$40 million to accelerate the development of the new technology.
It follows Baraja’s A$45 million Series A raising back in January 2019.
Since then, the Baraja team has been focused on delivering the scanner for real-world applications in industrial and mining industries world-wide.
Baraja has been testing its product in the desert on fully operational mining machines for two years, and this the Aussie start-up says gives it the edge on closest competitors in the US who test on commercial vehicles.
And since its initial launch, the focus is now on miniaturising the LiDAR tech to make it more affordable and appealing to use on commercial road vehicles.
The final LiDAR tech unit is expected to be small enough to embed within a vehicles carriage, completely out of sight.
The Baraja team will grow substantially following the successful A$40 million round two fund raising, from around 70 to an estimated 150 by mid-year, such is the thrust expected for the company’s product.
About Spectrum-Scan
Baraja was founded in 2016 by Federico Collarte and Cibby Pulikkaseril develop its Spectrum-Scan LiDAR technology by using wavelengths of light to detect range and to focus in an intuitive way.
Baraja’s Spectrum-Scan LiDAR completely rethinks previous approaches to environment-scanning by exploiting the wavelength properties of light to precisely steer the laser beams being emitted.
The result is a high-performance LiDAR with innate tolerance of factors that have typically inhibited previous LiDAR systems — such as heat, shock and vibration — leading to long-term high reliability.
Baraja’s SpectrumScan technology operates at 1550 nm and is capable of creating high-resolution, long-range point clouds without the shortcomings or mechanical components that hold back traditional systems.
For example, it exceeds the industry long-range sensing requirement of detecting a 10% reflectivity object at more than 200 metres.
Designed and built for maximum reliability in automotive environments, the modular design of the system uses prisms and tuneable wavelength lasers to provide an unprecedented ability to dynamically adjust resolution in key regions of interest.
This allows the technology to mimic the abilities of the human eye by instantly changing areas of focus based on the situation.
Spectrum-Scan™ works by rapidly switching the laser’s wavelength and transmitting light through a prism, which diffracts each color of light in a different direction.
When the light returns to the sensor, it is only processed if wavelength, angle, timing and encoding matches on all signals, insuring immunity to interference
