Renault CEO and chairman Carlos Ghosn has announced a strategic development agreement with Chronocam, a developer of biologically-inspired vision sensors and computer vision solutions for automotive applications.
"Renault is actively co-innovating with startups for agile development of technologies and this agreement will focus on further developing and applying Chronocam's innovative approach to sensing and processing visual inputs to Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving developments," the automaker said in a statement.
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It had previously announced an investment in Chronocam's Series B round of funding, which raised US$15m for the Paris-based start-up and includes a group of international venture capital funds.
Chronocam's proprietary approach to computer vision leverages the company's deep expertise in neuromorphic vision sensing, which mimics the human eye, and processing, which mimics the human brain. Because of the efficiencies it realises through its data capture techniques, the technology can expand conventional vision methods and contribute to better adoption and effectiveness in the automotive market.
The Chronocam technology innovation translates into specific benefits for ADAS and autonomous driving applications, including quicker detection of people and obstacles, enhanced robustness of the camera to adapt and detect environmental and contextual conditions, lower overall cost of implementation, making ADAS feature more accessible to more vehicles and market, thus improving safety in a broader way.
The two companies will work together to apply Chronocam's technology to areas such as collision avoidance, driver assistance, pedestrian protection, blind spot detection and other critical functions to improve safety and efficiency in the operation of both manned and autonomous vehicles.
"With the ambition to become one of the first brands to offer 'eyes-off/hands-off' technology on mainstream vehicles at an affordable price, we're pleased to work with Chronocam on an innovative computer vision technology in order to bring to customers safer and more affordable ADAS and progressively autonomous driving systems," said Gaspar Gascon, Groupe Renault's product engineering chief.
