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| DJI enters the world of self-driving cars with DJI Automotive |
Independent civil aircraft manufacturer DJI (DJI) recently announced that DJI Automotive will be launching as an independent division within the company. According to the Chinese version of the article, more news about this will be released at the Shanghai Auto Show.
DJI's automotive division deals with the research and development, production and sales of autonomous driving systems and related major components.
The company provides self-driving car sensors to manufacturers of the DJI Automotive brand and helps these companies build affordable self-driving cars for users.
Rumors about this surfaced a few months ago when Reuters announced in January that the company was forming an engineering team to study the independent technology.
Although it does make drones, it is still a robotics company, and some DJI technologies are applicable to self-driving cars.
Sensors and software are one of the most important things about self-driving cars - they need to be aware of the environment, interpret the meaning of the data, and make decisions based on what the sensors capture to facilitate the vehicle's maneuverability.
DJI has extensive experience with the self-driving cars that drones represent as these drones contain many technologies necessary to navigate the world around them.
DJI products are equipped with obstacle avoidance sensors and the LiDAR system, which includes measurement of the light reflected from the laser in order to continuously scan the surroundings in the area.
DJI applies these technologies to small and lightweight products (such as drones) and develops software that dovetail with technologies that many automakers lack.
Therefore DJI has expertise in many of the basic technologies required for this project. DJI has at least 14,000 employees, half or more of them are engineers.
While drones are clearly the main product line, a company of this size has the potential to penetrate other emerging markets.
The company has also partnered with Livox, the maker of LiDAR systems, who unveiled a new LiDAR module for self-driving vehicles at CES 2020.