Earlier this year, Ford announced a $1 billion investment and partnership with artificial intelligence startup Argo AI to develop autonomous driving systems.

Now, Argo AI has revealed that it has acquired Princeton Lightwave, a technology startup with expertise in LiDAR. In an article published to Medium, Argo AI chief executive Bryan Salesky said Princeton Lightwave will be able to create an accurate three-dimensional view of the world for self-driving vehicles.

“With the addition of the Princeton Lightwave team, Argo is uniquely positioned to innovate in both sensor hardware and the interface between sensor and software — enabling us to achieve performance improvements that would not otherwise be possible.

“Princeton Lightwave’s technology will help us unlock new capabilities that will aid our virtual driver system in handling object detection in challenging scenarios, such as poor weather conditions, and safely operating at high speeds in dynamic environments,” Salesky said.

LiDAR
is considered by many to be one of the most important technologies in making fully-autonomous cars a reality. Put simply, this type of sensor uses light waves to create a map of the world around it and generally works alongside ultrasonic sensors and cameras.

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