Heavily funded autonomous vehicle startup Aurora Innovation Inc. has acquired Ours Technology Inc., a fellow startup developing chip-based lidar sensors based on a new approach known as frequency-modulated continuous-wave sensing.

The deal was announced today. The companies didn’t share the transaction’s financial terms. 

Aurora is building an autonomous driving system that can be installed on trucks and cars to let them navigate the roads without human input. The startup has raised more than $1 billion in funding from investors including Amazon.com Inc. and Sequoia Capital. Aurora entered the headlines late last year when it bought Uber Technologies Inc.’s autonomous driving unit in a deal reportedly worth $4 billion.

Ours Technology, in turn, is a four-year-old startup led by researchers from the University of California at Berkeley. The startup has developed compact chips that can function as lidar sensors and create a three-dimensional map of the environment using laser light.  

All lidar sensors rely on laser emitters to collect data about their surroundings, but the implementation details vary. Most systems work by generating many individual pulses of light, catching the pulses that are reflected by nearby objects and turning them into pixels in a three-dimensional map.

Ours Technology’s chips, in contrast, generate a continuous wave of light. Aurora says this approach, known as frequency-modulated continuous-wave sensing, makes the chips less susceptible to interference from sun glare and the lidar sensors of nearby vehicles.

Equally significant is that the devices can be manufactured more cost effectively than traditional alternatives. That’s partly because they can be made using standard semiconductor production techniques and partly thanks to their compact size. According to Aurora, Ours Technology’s latest, fourth-generation lidar chip design facilitates a tenfold sensor size reduction.

Aurora plans to incorporate the chips into the sensing component of its autonomous driving system. The decision to acquire Ours Technology rather than simply licensing its technology will enable Aurora to remove the possibility of a competitor swooping in. Moreover, absorbing the startup will enable it to align the product development roadmap more closely with its business model. 

That Ours Technology’s chips can be made more cos-effectively than standard lidar hardware should ease Aurora’s efforts to scale up production of its autonomous driving system for customers. Since the start of 2021 alone, Aurora has announced partnerships with truck maker PACCAR Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp. to develop self-driving vehicles. 

Photo: Aurora