Oxbotica has collaborated with Navtech Radar to integrate its AV platform with the latter’s patented FMCW radar sensor to come out with the world’s first all-weather radar localisation solution for industrial autonomous vehicles.
Called Terran360, the standalone solution can accurately pinpoint the location of an autonomous vehicle with centimetre precision. It uses a single long-range, high-definition radar sensor to give a detailed 360-degree picture of a vehicle’s surroundings.
More importantly, it is designed to work alongside conventional systems and be deployed in GPS-denied environments or in harsh conditions not suitable for LiDAR or vision while maintaining full pinpoint localisation at all times.
"We are bringing a game-changing localisation system to market that gives operators and manufacturers a new way to answer the crucial autonomy question of ‘where am I?’ – and one that is unimpeded by environment or place,” said Paul Newman, founder & CTO at Oxbotica.
Navtech’s high-resolution radar sensor is able to operate in the harshest conditions - such as in rain, fog, dust, or dirt and in complete darkness. The vibration resistant and IP67-certified sensor is designed to be maintenance free for 10 years, helping to reduce disruption to operations with no compromise to precision, reliability, or safety.
Terran360’s output can be fused with other sensor feeds or used as a standalone system, and is also able to provide independent and highly accurate vehicle motion. Terran360 operates on any vehicles, from slow moving to speeds of up to 120kph (75mph) and has been comprehensively tested on different vehicle platforms and in dramatically different environments, including in mines, on urban roads, on railways and in marine settings.
Terran360 is typically accurate to <10cm on any vehicle, in any environment. Its key features include:
- Mapping is simple and infrastructure-free. From a single drive through the site, the solution collects the data needed to map your environment.
- Initialises and then localises at any point with no external seed. So, your vehicle is not limited to a set starting position and your system is unaffected in the case of an interruption to your operations or when initialising deep underground.
- Frame to frame motion estimation is performed using only data from the radar. This means total independence from all other sensing modalities.
"We are extremely proud to launch this outstanding product for commercial use, offering a radar localisation solution never seen before. Thanks to decades of experience in delivering radar solutions for safety and mission critical applications, and together with Oxbotica’s world-leading autonomy software platform, Terran360 is trusted to answer the fundamental question for autonomous vehicles: “Where am I?”, everywhere, every time,” said Phil Avery, managing director at Navtech Radar.
