Detroit, MI. — RoboSense (2498.HK), the global leader in LiDAR and perception solution market, held the “REDEFINED” 2024 new product launch event, and unveiled the new MX LiDAR, a new generation mid-long range LiDAR from its M platform, marking the beginning of the “Mass Adoption” Era in the industry. Leveraging its superior product advantages, RoboSense announced that the MX has already secured three new global design wins from OEMs immediately upon the release of MX, with the first project will achieve SOP in the first half of 2025.
During the event, RoboSense also announced an extensive, deepened strategic cooperation with Momenta, focusing on advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving services. The collaboration involves deep, full-dimensional business integration centered around the MX projects, aiming to push the mass application of LiDAR and intelligent driving systems across more mainstream vehicle models
Defining the Automotive-grade Mid-Long Range LiDAR
The MX, which is the culmination of solid-state chip integration of LiDAR, also is the industry’s first LiDAR system to achieve a full-stack system-on-chip architecture for scanning, processing, and transceiver modules, ushering the industry into the era of intelligent solid-state LiDARs. With its extreme design, MX boasts an unrivaled thinness of 25mm, an ultra-quiet operation sound, and an incredibly low power consumption under 10W. It can detect objects up to 200 meters away with a field of view of 120° x 25°, featuring 126-beam (ROI region equivalent to 251-beam). The intelligent “GAZE” function has been upgraded, allowing full adjustability of the ROI, enhancing the safety and efficiency of the intelligent driving experience. With its outstanding performance, MX sets a new standard in the industry for high aesthetics, low cost, and strong performance.
With a thickness of 25mm, MX redefines the standard design for primary LiDARs, enabling flexible deployment both inside and outside the vehicle cabin. Previously, the M1 pioneered vehicle integration with a thickness of 45mm, setting a benchmark for primary LiDARs in mass production. Compared to M1/M1 Plus/M2, MX reduces volume by 40%, thickness by 44% to just 25mm, and reduces the exposed window area by 80%. MX can be flexibly embedded in positions such as the windshield, roof, headlights, and grille, offering a more convenient deployment that aligns with the vehicle’s aesthetics. When mounted externally, MX aids in achieving an optimal blend of ultra-low aerodynamic drag and elegant design for intelligent vehicles. When installed behind the windshield, it offers minimal Keep Out Zone (KOZ), ensuring zero obstruction to the user’s visibility.
Moreover, MX delivers an astonishingly silent performance. Leveraging RoboSense’s mature two-dimensional scanning MEMS chip technology, MX operates with no mechanical vibration noise, maintaining a sound level undistinguishable from background noise throughout its lifecycle. Whether deployed inside or outside the cabin, MX achieves NVH-free (noise, vibration, and harshness) operation, providing a quiet and premium driving experience.
Another highlight of MX’s upgrade is its comprehensive intelligence evolution. MX builds upon M platform’s variable focus patent technology and upgrades the intelligent “GAZE” feature to achieve dynamic adjustments in both horizontal and vertical directions. The ROI function transitions from “single-axis intelligence” to “global intelligence,” making MX the industry’s first intelligent LiDAR sensor capable of dynamically adjusting scanning in all dimensions. In urban mode, MX offers a wide-angle view of 120°×25°, aiding vehicles in handling city scenarios such as unprotected left turns, U-turns, and merging with traffic, ensuring a more comfortable driving experience. In high-speed mode, MX focuses on scanning distant roads directly ahead, with an ROI equivalent to 251 beams and angular resolution of 0.1°×0.1°, enabling vehicles to detect distant obstacles early and ensuring safe intelligent driving
Powered by Fully Self-Developed SoC Chip，called M-Core
RoboSense has been committed to continuous cost reduction and efficiency enhancement in automotive LiDAR through chip integration and platform iteration. At the launch event, RoboSense unveiled its significant progress and development plans in chip integration technology, a critical aspect that enables MX to maintain high performance while significantly reducing costs and increasing integration.
MX not only integrates RoboSense’s years of research into chip integration with the fully self-developed SoC chip（M-Core）, but also incorporates the same two-dimensional MEMS scanning chip as the M platform while upgrading the receiving and transmitting system chips, making it a pinnacle achievement in LiDAR-on-chip technology.
Integrated Processing Chip: MX features the M-Core chip, integrating a 4-core 64-bit APU+2-core MCU, with a 1GHz main frequency and an 8MByte on-chip storage unit, delivering robust computational power. Moreover, M-Core integrates multiple threshold TDCs (Time-to-Digital Converters), enhancing weak echo detection 4 times, equivalent to a 32x improvement in distance resolution. As the industry’s most integrated SoC, M-Core breaks new ground by integrating the entire backend circuitry into a single chip, reducing MX’s mainboard area by 50%, power consumption by 40%, and significantly lowering costs.
Scanning Module Chip Integration: MX leverages RoboSense’s proprietary MEMS chip scanning technology, revolutionizing traditional one-dimensional mechanical scanning with a stacked architecture, upgrading LiDAR architecture design for high integration, high performance, low cost, flexible scanning, and high reliability, resulting in the industry’s smallest volume, lowest power consumption primary LiDAR in production. This also serves as one of the technological cornerstones that have earned global recognition and application from the widest range of automotive clients for the M platform LiDAR.
Receiving and Transmitting System Chip Iteration: By modularizing and platformizing the design of the receiving and transmitting modules and iterating on generic chip components from the upstream supply chain, RoboSense achieves improved detection performance through pin-to-pin upgrades of the laser receiving and transmitting chip components, resulting in maximum performance gains with minimal design change costs.
MX achieves a groundbreaking full-stack chip integration of scanning, processing, and receiving-transmitting systems, showcasing the complete form of LiDAR chip integration design. Through high integration and optimized design, MX achieves cost reduction and efficiency enhancement across all dimensions. Compared to M1 Plus, MX reduces PCBA (Printed Circuit Board Assembly) component count by 69%, mainboard area by 50%, optical component count by 80%, and power consumption to below 10W, significantly improving manufacturability and reducing costs.
Highly Iterative Product Development Strategy
This launch event marked a significant iteration of platform-based design from start to finish in the MX product. From the beginning of its design, MX was positioned as a new generation product bridging the M platform, maintaining scanning principles and data interfaces while allowing for continual performance upgrades, thereby helping customers continuously optimize the intelligent driving performance of new vehicle models at virtually cost for product development.
Over nearly three years of scaled mass production application practice, RoboSense’s M platform LiDAR has been widely recognized for its solid reliability and manufacturability across the global market. As of the end of February 2024, the M platform had secured mass production orders for 63 car models from 22 automakers and Tier 1 suppliers, achieved SOP for 25 vechicle models. By the end of March 2024, the M platform LiDAR had accumulated sales volume of over 400,000 units, leading the global market with outstanding capabilities.
“Equitable Technology Advancement”
The launch of MX once again positions RoboSense as a “definer of the industry,” establishing new benchmarks for mid-long range LiDAR value and leading the entire LiDAR industry into the era of the “Mass Adoption”. This advancement will accelerate the penetration of intelligent driving technology into new market spaces, enabling LiDAR to reach a broader price range of vehicle markets and helping more consumers enjoy a safe and intelligent driving experience.
Furthermore, RoboSense is fully prepared for the accelerated adoption of LiDAR in applications. At the launch event, RoboSense unveiled the “MARS Smart Manufacturing Headquarters.” Covering an area of 100,000 square meters, the smart manufacturing park’s first phase of construction is underway and is expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2024. By the first quarter of 2025, the first batch of MX products will roll out from the MARS Smart Manufacturing Headquarters, ready for mass production vehicle integration.
About RoboSense
RoboSense (2498.HK) is a global leader in the LiDAR and perception solutions market. Our mission is to make the world safer and smarter through autonomous technology innovation.
Founded in 2014, RoboSense is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, with locations globally, including Detroit, Michigan and Stuttgart, Germany. The RoboSense team comprises top talent from leading global companies and scientific research institutions, bolstering our innovation capabilities. With customer-centric technology and a highly iterative product development strategy, we deliver solutions that harness the power of three core technologies: chips, LiDAR hardware, and perception software.
