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Silicon Valley-based Aeva makes lidar sensors, which can help
self-driving cars and other devices gain a three-dimensional
view of their surrounding world. Aeva's take on the technology
can also detect how fast objects are moving, helping it
distinguish stationary objects from pedestrians and other cars.
While Aeva is targeting self-driving car markets, it has also
started selling its sensors to industrial firms. The company
said that Sick AG, a German company that helps factories
automate production using machines and sensors, has agreed to
use Aeva sensors for industrial markets.
The deal follows an earlier agreement Aeva struck with Nikon
Corp to use Aeva sensors in factories. While Nikon is using Aeva
sensors to scan manufactured items indoors from a few feet away
for microscopic defects, Sick plans to use the sensors for
scanning tens or hundreds of feet away in outdoor applications
like mining vehicles or logistics cranes loading containers at
ports, among scores of potential uses.
"Industrial is quite fragmented," Aeva's chief executive,
Soroush Salehian, told Reuters in an interview. "Effectively,
they are a reliable, qualified (sales) channel partner for us so
that we don't have to go make deals with thousands of companies,
which becomes very challenging to try to do."
In addition to selling sensors to Sick, Aeva will provide Sick
with software to tweak the sensors for varying uses. Salehian
said the deal includes software license revenue in addition to
hardware sales, but he declined to comment further on the size
of the deal.
Aeva said it will begin supplying its Aeries II sensors to Sick
this year, with full production under the deal expected to start
in 2024.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie
Adler)
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