Last month, the Business Intelligence Group (BIG) announced the winners of its annual Innovation Awards, given to the companies and products deemed to have had significant impact in “bringing new ideas to life.” Among this year’s crop of winners was Foresight Automotive with its QuadSight vision system for autonomous driving. Given the anticipation and excitement around autonomous vehicles (AVs), innovation in this space is not only important, butit also is highly visible. The BIG sees QuadSight bringing tangible progress to the effort to broaden and deepen the reach of level 3, 4 and 5 vehicle autonomy.
Better than Human Sight?
At its core, QuadSight is about replicating that most essential of human-driving abilities: vision. Its four-camera setup enables highly accurate obstacle detection, even in difficult conditions. Even if objects are small, as small as 25 x 35cm at 100 meters, or distant, up to 250 meters away, QuadSight enables autonomous systems to detect and react safely. Foresight also emphasizes the obstacle detection’s adaptability to a range of conditions. Glare, fog and precipitation do not impair its functionality the way they might inhibit a human’s ability to spot impediments ahead. Neither does an altogether more common driving situation: total darkness.
Foresight designed the system to support a range of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Features like automatic emergency braking, lane-keep assist, autopilot, active cruise control and various collision avoidance systems all rely on input from vision systems like QuadSight. In its award briefing, the BIG said that QuadSight makes driving safer by providing “advanced perception capabilities beyond those of human vision.”
Supporting the Future of AVs
Headquartered in Israel, Foresight’s entire commercial focus is sensors for the automotive industry. It hopes to target the semi-autonomous and autonomous markets across multiple verticals, including both consumer vehicles and commercial transport. The company sees its BIG Innovation award as an endorsement of its efforts to bring reliable, accurate, and cost-effective in-line-of-vision systems to the industry.
“QuadSight’s innovative technology addresses the real-world need for obstacle detection accuracy capable of ensuring autonomous vehicle safety,” said CEO Haim Siboni. “This prestigious recognition from the 2020 BIG Innovation Awards further validates Foresight’s innovation and achievements in advancing vision systems for the automotive industry.”